Like many self-identified Christian conservatives, House Speaker Mike Johnson has long been preoccupied with sex — who’s having it, how they are having it, and why they are having it. In 2004, he proclaimed that “sex outside of the marriage of one man and one woman is ultimately destructive.” In 2022, he introduced the Stop the Sexualization of Children Act, a bill premised on the notion that Democrats were on a “crusade to immerse young children in sexual imagery.”
But a Business Insider review of Johnson’s social media postings and political affiliations found that while he was busy seeking to regulate private sexual behavior and castigating his opponents as “groomers” of children, the Louisiana Republican was associated with a coterie of right-wing activists with a history of overlooking, tolerating, or ignoring the sexual abuse of children and teens in their own midst.
Most notably, according to a photo posted to his Facebook account and unearthed by Business Insider, Johnson proudly campaigned in 2014 with a man who would become one of the most notorious sex offenders in recent history — disgraced reality TV star Josh Duggar.
Duggar, who was convicted of possessing child pornography in 2021, worked as a lobbyist for the Christian evangelical activist group Family Research Council from 2013 to 2015, when allegations surfaced that the former “19 Kids and Counting” star molested several minors, including his own sisters.
The man who recruited Duggar, FRC president Tony Perkins, is a long-time friend and political ally of Johnson. The new Speaker recently described Perkins as his “original mentor” on a recent episode of his “Truth Be Told” radio show. According to the Washington Post, “Perkins goes way back with the Duggar family.”
Hellbound and Down 