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U.S. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson at the U.S. Capitol building in Washington, D.C., October 2025
Opinion: Instead of kindness, he performs random acts of hate. Each time he invokes hate, he infects others with the same malice, writes John Casey.
It never ceases to amaze me how conservative Christians love to hate, and love to use the word hate as if their Christianity allows them to be hateful. Speak about hate, then condemn hate, then use the word hate to spread hate, and then speak about hate again.
The whole thing is a vicious circle.Vicious being the operative word.
Proving that he is the Antichrist, Donald Trump recently went on a tear about hating his enemies at Charlie Kirk’s memorial service. Sadly, I’ve been to my share of memorials, and I can say without hesitation that I’ve never once heard “hate” preached from a pulpit. Unless it was something like “Ed hated spinach.”
Related: What Karoline Leavitt calls Trump’s 'authenticity' is abhorrent to the rest of the world
But hate has become the new holy scripture for today’s Republican Party.Jesus said in John 4:20-21,"Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God.”
I guess that line from Jesus gets lost on the phony Christian conservatives among all the times Jesus said homosexuals would burn in hell. Oh, wait, he didn’t say anything about that. Then I wonder why they miss such strong advice from Christ?
Hate for brother or sister inhabits its most sanctimonious messenger, U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson. This week, Johnson condemned the upcoming “No Kings” protests, calling them a “Hate America rally.” I swear to a God (the one who loves) that Johnson simply cannot get away from hating.
His piety is just so nauseating, which is fitting for his politics that make people sick. He hates as if hating was the 11th Commandment and that God personally signed his permission slip to be hateful.
That’s why, if we’re going to talk about “hate rallies,” let’s start with the one Mike Johnson leads every single day from the speaker’s chair. His throne of hatemongering, where he gavels in hate each day he presides over the House, which quite frankly, hasn’t been in session for quite some time.
And the reason they’ve been absent is due to hate..
Because Mike Johnson hates the Epstein victims. The games Johnson is playing to keep the Epstein files sealed are shameful beyond words. His priority is protecting the Antichrist (Trump) which only shows the abhorrence he has for Epstein’s victims.
The Epstein crimes are perhaps the single greatest underage sex trafficking in modern American history, so you can only assume that Johnson endorses that evil behavior with his strenuous efforts to keep the Epstein files hidden.
Back in July, when the House was poised to vote on releasing the files, Johnson abruptly called for an early summer recess, a true coward’s move to avoid accountability.
And now, he’s doubled down, keeping the House out of session so that a new Arizona representative can’t be sworn in. She would be the very member who would tip the balance and sign the petition to discharge the files, forcing a vote.
It’s sinful, and it is evidence of his moral depravity. Every delay, every cynical and sinister move, is a slap in the face to Epstein’s victims. They are survivors who have waited decades for the truth.
By blocking transparency, Johnson is protecting predators and power brokers, i.e. the sinners. Johnson is a pathetic excuse for a Christian defending the scorned as Jesus did.
Mike Johnson also hates the U.S. Constitution. After the 2020 election, Johnson eagerly joined Trump’s circle of fire of lies. He pushed the conspiracy that voting machines were rigged and became one of 147 Republicans to object to certifying the results, even after a pro-Trump mob attacked Congress during the insurrection that left nine people dead and hundreds convicted — and later, shockingly pardoned.
Before all of this, it’s important to be reminded that Johnson also authored the friend-of-the-court brief backing Texas’s unconstitutional attempt to throw out swing-state results. A House Republican lawyer even said the brief violated the Constitution, but Johnson didn’t care.
And there you go! He did all that because he loathes the Constitution. Rather than respect it, he shreds it. Sort of the same thing he does with his “Bible.”
And wow, does Mike Johnson hate queers. Big time! Before politics, Johnson worked for the Alliance Defending Freedom, an organization labeled a hate group for its relentless attacks on LGBTQ+ rights. The ADF has fought to criminalize same-sex relationships, defended forced sterilization of trans people, and spread the grotesque lie that queer people are linked to pedophilia.
Johnson’s hate is demented because he has no business judging me or my community. In Matthew 7:1, Jesus says, "Do not judge, or you too will be judged.” See, because he thinks he’s a wicked God and can judge me, I will judge him, with Jesus’ permission, of course.
Mike Johnson is not a Christian conservative. He might be a conservative, but he’s far from being a Christian. He’s a heathen, a fundamentalist, self-righteous extremist. Anyone who hates me as much as he does, well, I’ll leave it to you to figure out the reason for that hate. Because Mike Johnson seethes with hate.
Especially toward poor people. MIke Johnson really hates the poor. Passionately. Just think of Johnson’s unwavering support for Trump’s “big beautiful bill,” which was described as “harsh, mean, and brutal.”
Those giant tax cuts for the rich (Johnson’s fellow “clergymen”) reveal just how little compassion he has for struggling Americans. Those cuts overwhelmingly benefit the wealthy and widen the inequality gap. Yet Johnson has made it clear he wants to go even further.
He has said before that he’s about slashing programs that millions depend on, like Medicare, Medicaid, the Affordable Care Act, and Social Security.
If you are poor, old, handicapped, or infirm, Mike Johnson loathes your existence. And that in and of itself shows he’s anything but a Christian.
As Bishop William Barber told me recently, ignoring poverty defies Christianity itself. He calls it the “Jesus problem,” in that you can’t just say you’re Christian, you have to do the work. “Jesus started his ministry declaring good news for the poor,” Barber pointed out.
Related: Bishop William Barber: Ignoring the poor means ignoring the Jesus factor and defying Christianity
But Johnson doesn’t seem to care. He worships wealth and power, not compassion or community. The God he invokes so freely in his missives is not the one who fed the hungry and healed the sick. God forbid Johnson show any compassion for the poor.
And this, I think, is his darkest gift. Because hate is contagious. You know how there are “random acts of kindness,” small gestures that ripple outward and inspire more goodness? Mike Johnson does the opposite.
He performs random acts of hate. Each time he opens his mouth or wields his power by invoking hate, he infects others with the same malice. His hate spreads through Fox News sound bites, campaign rallies, and church pulpits until it reaches ordinary Americans who start believing that cruelty is righteousness. And that hate is OK.
Think I’m exaggerating? Go talk to a trans person.
And here’s where it gets personal. I’ll confess something painful, and that is I find myself hating Mike Johnson. I hate what he stands for. I hate how he treats people like me, a gay man, as less than human. I hate how he treats the poor. I hate how he uses God to spread hate. I hate his cowardliness in not using his platform to speak out against all the injustice we are experiencing.
And I hate that his hatred tempts me into returning the favor. But then I take a step back. I refuse to be infused with his poison. I refuse to become what he is. Because the God I know — the God I love — cares for the poor, the sick, and the marginalized. The very people Mike Johnson despises. And I have no doubt that when Johnson meets that God, he’ll have to answer for all of the destructive hate he spreads on a daily basis.
So no, Mike Johnson, the “Hate America” rally won’t be out in the streets. It’s not the protesters or the poor or queers or the sick or the elderly. It’s you. You lead it everyday, rallying America with hate.
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