This is the article that appeared in the October 2023 edition of Catalyst, our monthly journal. The date that prints out reflects the day that it was uploaded to our website. For a more accurate date of when the article was first published, check out the news release, here.
The all-out assault on Rep. Mike Johnson, the newly elected Speaker of the House, is about much more than his evangelical roots: the unrelenting attacks are meant to discourage younger Christian conservatives from running for office; they are also meant to discredit the Founders and our Judeo-Christian heritage.
Michael Tomasky at the New Republic labels Johnson a “hard-core theocrat.” Jennifer Bendery at Huffington Post says he is “one of the most extreme members of the House MAGA majority.” Bill Maher compared him to a mass shooter.
Those bigots who call him a “Christofascist” include Faithful America (funded by George Soros), Amanda Marcotte at Salon, Noah Berlatsky at Public Notice, and David Rothkopf at the Daily Beast.
Branding him a “Christian Nationalist” are the Washington Post’s Kate Cohen, MSNBC writer Sarah Posner, Thomas B. Edsall (in a New York Times op-ed), Robert Jones of the Public Religion Research Institute, sociologist Andrew Whitehead, and Mother Jones author David Corn.
Even more incendiary—saying he is a danger to the nation—are Rothkopf, Rep. Jared Huffman (D-CA), and MSNBC host Joy Reid. Brian Karem at Salon even titled his piece on Johnson, “Bigger Threat to America than Hamas Could Ever Be.”
Some of these people have a long record of anti-Catholic bigotry (Maher, Marcotte and Posner); others are known for trying to normalize pedophilia (Berlatsky); Corn and Reid are left-wing extremists; Huffman says Democrats should consider taking away the tax-exempt status of the Catholic Church; and Jones and Whitehead are known for smearing Christian conservatives.
Why the hysteria over Johnson? He is opposed to the LGBT agenda and is proud of our nation’s Christian legacy.
The Advocate, a gay publication, is upset that Johnson has drawn attention to the “dangerous lifestyle” of gays. Anyone in the post-AIDS era who isn’t aware of the lethal sex practices and rampant promiscuity that libertine homosexuals are known for is positively clueless.
When Corn objects to Christians who say there is but one truth, and it is Jesus, he is expressing a deep hatred of Christians. When Whitehead and Jones are angry at Christians who are proud of America’s Judeo-Christian heritage, the problem is theirs, and theirs alone.
Catholics need to know that the same people behind these vicious assaults against the Speaker not only hate the religious principles upon which this nation was founded, they hate those evangelicals, practicing Catholics and observant Jews who love them.
The model Catholic that these haters admire is our “devout Catholic” president, a man who publicly opposes the Catholic Church’s teachings on abortion, marriage, the family, homosexuality, gender ideology, religious liberty and school choice.
