A deep dive into House Speaker Michal Johnson's litigation history before he entered Congress reveals he believes in stretching the boundaries of the Constitution to favor religious groups -- but only when it comes to his specific brand of Christianity.
In a column for Politico, legal scholar and University of Baltimore School of Law professor Kimberly Wehle analyzed the Louisiana Republican's legal filings and concluded that Johnson is a tireless advocate for inserting Christian doctrine into public policy and allowing his favorite strain of evangelical Christianity to receive government funding.
As Wehle wrote, what she observed was a distinct pattern that demonstrates Johnson "can take different positions on constitutional issues depending on who the parties are."
"Johnson’s theory, summed up, appears to be what might be dubbed, 'the First Amendment for me but not for thee.' As he has described it in his own words, 'the founders wanted to protect the church from the encroaching state, not the other way around,'" the legal scholar wrote before adding, "But only when that church is Christian."
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As she points out, and what should not come as any surprise based upon recent reports about his public utterances about religion, Johnson believes the U.S. was founded as a Christian nation and strongly is of the opinion "that modern Christians are being selectively persecuted by secularist influences in government."
Wehle was quick to add that Johnson's concerns don't extend to alternative religions.
"Johnson instead aims to prioritize only a particular religion (Christianity), and in practice, mostly one strain of that religion (evangelicalism). Other faiths (Jews, Muslims, Buddhists) and even other branches of Christianity (Catholics, Orthodox, mainline Protestants) don’t as routinely sue to prioritize the expression of their faith in a government-sponsored forum," she wrote. "But based on his legal cases, it’s clear Johnson’s only concern is for the rights of Christians to exercise their faith in public and access government funding; he has not sought to obtain that privilege for other faiths and has been openly hostile to the idea that the public square should be neutral on religion or secularism."
You can read more analysis by Whele on a case-by-case basis here.
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