The recently elected House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican from Louisiana, apparently made his 13-year-old daughter sign an oath to not have sex before marriage. According to a recently resurfaced segment that his family recorded for a German TV news program, he and his daughter attended a "purity ball" around 2015.
Upon looking up the definition, a purity ball is a formal dance event typically practiced by some conservative Christian groups in the United States. The events are attended by fathers and their teenage daughters in order to promote virginity until marriage.
At the ball, Johnson had his daughter sing an oath, promising that she would wait until marriage before having sex. And while many people see this as an issue to his leadership position, others see it as no problem.
"How does this affect his leadership in congress?" someone commented. "News flash…for many centuries this has been the standards among many religious sects! Why act as if we don't know this! ."
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Johnson previously shared that he and his son monitor each other’s pornography viewing habits. He's also supported criminalization of same-sex sexual encounters and believes same-sex marriage leads to pedophilia and bestiality.
“This looks like a wedding,” the German news reporter says in the 2015. “But they are not bride and groom — but rather father and … daughter." Hannah, his daughter, is now in her 20s.
During the pledge, the daughter signs an oath “to make a commitment to God, myself, my family, my friends, my future husband, and my future children … to a lifetime of purity, including sexual purity.” Johnson is seen nodding in agreement.
During a separate part of the segment, Johnson’s wife Kelly tells the interviewer, “We don’t talk to [our daughter] about contraception. Sex before marriage is simply out of the question.”
His wife runs a Christian counseling service that was under scrutiny for comparing LGBTQ+ identities to bestiality on its website. In an October call with the World Prayer Network, Johnson said that America is “dark and depraved” because of having too many LGBTQ+ people.
He also previously said that same-sex marriage will lead to “chaos and sexual anarchy” and “place our entire democratic system in jeopardy by eroding its foundation.” His belief is that legalizing same-sex marriage would lead to “pedophiles” seeking legal protections for having sex with children and people trying to marry their pets.