Much has been made of new Speaker Mike Johnson’s faith. The GOP lawmaker from Louisiana has made it clear that he uses the Bible as his instruction manual in all matters. He has consistently fought against LGBTQ+ rights, both as an attorney and representative.
Over the weekend, attention turned to his wife. Kelly Johnson, according to the speaker’s own website, is a “Licensed Christian Counselor and former school teacher”. They married in 1999 and are both active within the Louisiana Southern Baptist community.
HuffPost reported on Friday that Kelly runs Onward Christian Counseling Services. It dug around the business’s website. It offered a link to its 2017 operating agreement. This states the business operator’s belief that sex is offensive to God if it does not take place between a man and woman married to one another.
It went on to lump homosexuality in with bestiality and incest.
“We believe and the Bible teaches that any form of sexual immorality, such as adultery, fornication, homosexuality, bisexual conduct, bestiality, incest, pornography or any attempt to change one’s sex, or disagreement with one’s biological sex, is sinful and offensive to God.”
The agreement was signed, in his role as a public notary, by Mike Johnson.
Temperament counseling
Business Insider ran another report into Kelly Johnson’s business yesterday. It says her counseling service divides people into some rather antiquated personality types, loosely based on the teachings of the Greek physician Hippocrates.
So-called “Temperament counseling” splits people into the categories: Melancholy, Choleric, Sanguine, Supine, and Phlegmatic.
The system was devised by Richard and Phyllis Arno, who founded the National Christian Counselors Association in the 1980s. They were inspired by the work of a notorious homophobe called Tim LaHaye.
The National Christian Counselor’s Association encourages therapists and clients to fully engage with their faith, even if it means operating in an unorthodox way.
Kelly Johnson’s website made no explicit mention of offering conversion therapy. However, if it did so, it wouldn’t be against the law in Louisiana. The state has no conversion therapy ban.
It now emerges that Kelly’s website was taken down on Saturday afternoon, a day after the initial HuffPost report.
The Johnsons have not responded to requests for comment or explained why the website disappeared. It’s also unknown if Kelly Johnson will continue to offer her faith-based counseling following her husband’s meteoric political rise to Speaker of the House. She was pretty busy in the two weeks prior to his election on her knees, praying, according to her husband.
Fortunately, before it disappeared into the ether, a screenshot of Kelly’s website was saved to the Web Archive website. Others said taking the website down at this stage was a little too late.
Too late. You can run, but you can’t hide your extreme views, Mrs. Mikey.— Jim Hagman, Ph.D. (@HagmanDr) October 30, 2023
But I thought these people were “proud” of their views?
For those who are unaware: Conversion therapy is abuse. Sending someone to a “Christian counselor” in the hopes that said “counselor” convinces them to stop being gay is conversion therapy.— Tabi the Rabbi #NAFO (@TabiBlakemore) October 30, 2023
Wow what a surprise that the Christian Nationalist bigot who spent his career working for Alliance Defending Freedom and spewing hate just so happens to be married to another hateful bigot! Shocking! https://t.co/qJI0wXNdvx— American Atheists (@AmericanAtheist) October 30, 2023
I thought they believed that “god didn’t make mistakes” and “everyone was made perfectly in his image”— The Saurus (@TheSaurus831) October 30, 2023
Jenna Ellis defends Kelly Johnson
Kelly Johnson can perhaps take comfort that one person—besides her husband–supports her. That’s disgraced former Trump attorney Jenna Ellis, who last week pleaded guilty to election interference charges in Georgia.
In a tweet, Ellis said Kelly’s business was not equating gay sex with bestiality and she shouldn’t have taken down the site.
“The statement is providing examples of ‘any form’ of sexual immorality — not comparing or equating them. Further, it’s accurate. Each of those examples listed are in fact actions the Bible teaches are immoral.”
(@HagmanDr) October 30, 2023
(@TabiBlakemore) October 30, 2023
