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The older I get, the extra reminders I see that Maya Angelou was proper: “When somebody reveals you who they’re, imagine them the primary time.”
Take the brand new Home speaker, Mike Johnson, as an example.
Opinion Columnist
LZ Granderson
LZ Granderson writes about tradition, politics, sports activities and navigating life in America.
He’s been exhibiting who he’s since 1998, when he graduated from regulation faculty and began going after the LGBTQ+ group each probability he might. And I’m not simply speaking about making an attempt to cease same-sex marriage, as a result of let’s face it, many progressives have been in opposition to it again then as nicely. However Johnson was excessive by comparability — advocating for legal guidelines that banned two adults from having consensual intercourse in their very own dwelling.
So, to anybody who considers themselves an ally of the LGBTQ+ group, know this: Identical-sex marriage and different protections usually are not secure.
Johnson (R-La.) has made attacking the queer group an enormous a part of his life’s work. We don’t but know his fashion as a pacesetter within the Home, however we all know precisely the place he intends to go.
And judging from how the speaker choice course of performed out over the weeks after the ouster of Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Bakersfield), the Republican Celebration appears to be like greater than prepared to go after the queer group with him. Of the three speaker nominations earlier than Johnson’s, the quickest one to break down was that of Home Majority Whip Tom Emmer of Minnesota. It lasted barely 4 hours. One of many key points cited by his opposition: his assist of same-sex marriage.
“I informed him it wasn’t between he and I,” stated Rep. Rick Allen (R-Ga.) about why he opposed Emmer. “It was between he and the teachings of Jesus Christ.”
For some purpose, I don’t assume Allen meant “love your neighbor as your self.”
No, conservatives like him and Johnson have a tendency to make use of Christianity as justification for anti-LGBTQ+ discrimination. The highly effective gamers inside this big wing of the Republican Celebration don’t, nonetheless, appear to take nice problem with different “sins” corresponding to adultery.
Creator Jeff Sharlet has written a number of books on the internal workings of a collective of highly effective Republican politicians, a few of whom share a city home in Washington that was the positioning of not solely prayer teams but additionally apparently extramarital affairs. The New Yorker dubbed it a “frat home for Jesus.” It takes a really particular studying of the Bible to land on “jail homosexual individuals” and “extramarital affairs are OK” on the similar time.
“The Household,” because the group is named, can be tied to the passage of anti-gay laws in Romania and Uganda, which now sentences LGBTQ+ individuals to demise and imprisons anybody who fails to report a queer individual to the federal government.
I’m not positive how the “fiscally conservative, socially liberal” crowd will course of all of this data come the 2024 election, particularly if there’s a promise of tax cuts bundled up with the distasteful discrimination. Nonetheless, given how this nation continues to battle with not solely LGBTQ+ rights but additionally racial and gender fairness, I’m not too optimistic.
In 2021, not lengthy after the lethal Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol, Johnson gave a chat to a gaggle of congressional staffers as a part of the Religion and Legislation lecture sequence. The bipartisan group is sort of a assume tank for Christians engaged on the Hill. Johnson, a Trump ally who tried to overturn the 2020 election on his behalf, listed “the rule of regulation” second amongst his seven core conservative rules.
He listed “particular person freedom” and “restricted authorities” as first and third — regardless of wanting legal guidelines to ban intercourse between two consenting adults in their very own dwelling.
Past his run-of-the-mill doubletalk, the road that caught my consideration most was this one: “I’m doing the identical factor I used to do again within the late ’90s.”
Keep in mind he graduated from regulation faculty in 1998. That can be the yr a younger homosexual man in Wyoming, Matthew Shepard, was brutally overwhelmed, tied to a fence and left to die. That tragic story dominated the information for months. And Johnson began his legislative campaign in opposition to LGBTQ+ individuals within the wake of that tragedy.
That’s what Johnson was doing again within the late ’90s. He might not be a family identify but, however he isn’t an unknown. He confirmed us precisely who he was the primary time.
So take Maya Angelou’s recommendation and imagine him.
@LZGranderson
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