I’m not talking about Mike Johnson’s purported Black son but his late father Patrick Johnson and his wife Janis Gabriel. They had a strained relationship. Johnson likes talking about his father more than he did talking to him. Here’s why: Patrick Johnson was an ardent environmentalist with views anathema to his bible banging son. So much for honor thy father.

Johnson’s stepmother was interviewed by The Guardian about her husband’s passion for the environment and opposition to a toxic burn pit at Camp Minden in Mike Johnson’s district. Patrick Johnson was a Shreveport firefighter when he suffered life-threatening burns caused by a toxic chemical accident. Mike Johnson’s response to his father’s near-death experience was to be “born again” as an evangelical Christian. Patrick’s response was to become an activist dedicated to saving the planet.

Ms. Gabriel told The Guardian about her husband’s attempt to convince his son to do the right thing:

“The pair drove to Mike Johnson’s legal offices in the late morning, Gabriel recalled, and Patrick Johnson explained to his son the immediate environmental and health dangers the toxic dump posed, not only to residents in the immediate vicinity but to members of the Johnson family living in the region.

“His father and I went to him and said: ‘Mike you need to get involved in this, this is really important. Your family really lives at ground zero,’” Gabriel said in an interview with the Guardian. “We basically begged him to say something, to someone, somewhere.”

A terse back and forth followed, she said.

“He just wasn’t interested,” Gabriel said. “He had other things to do. He was never interested in environmental things.”

The couple left deeply disappointed.

“It just blew my mind that he wouldn’t give five minutes of his time to the effort,” she said. “He basically shut us down.”

Anyone surprised that Johnson’s ideology and religiosity trumped his family values? I am not.

Mike Johnson is a creationist. They believe that the end is nigh, so why care about the air we breathe or the water we drink? He’s also tight with the creator of the fakakta Noah’s Ark thing in Kentucky, Ken Ham. Patrick Johnson’s lobbying efforts harshed his son’s evangelical buzz.

This is what Mike Johnson thinks of environmentalists:

“They regard the climate agenda as part of their religion. I don’t know any other way to explain it. They pursue it with religious zeal. And they care not what type of pain these policies inflict upon the people that they are supposed to be serving because they’re not serving the people, they’re serving the planet.”

Correct me if I’m wrong but aren’t people part of the planet? Protecting the planet means protecting the people. Holy Pretzel Logic, Batman.

It’s ironic to hear Johnson criticize religious zeal when he’s full of it. Shorter Adrastos: Mike Johnson is a hypocrite who is full of shit.

Johnson’s stepmother makes the same point:

“Janis Gabriel pointed to Mike Johnson’s hardline faith and political pragmatism when explaining her interpretation of why he had brushed aside his father’s appeals to help with the air pollution crisis at Camp Minden.

“It speaks to those religious beliefs,” said Gabriel. “‘Don’t take care of the environment because we have a finite amount of time here and God will take care of you.’ It’s crazy.”

Gabriel, who was discussing her relationship with the House speaker for the first time publicly, said she was disclosing details of private conversations because Johnson now holds a position of immense power. She wanted to further public understanding of “what and who he is and how that will affect the job he’s doing for us.”

“That is the important conversation,” she said.”

Indeed, it is. It’s a conversation that Republicans do not want to have. They hope to get away with their extreme agenda by cloaking it in piety and Mike Johnson’s superficial geniality.

Many are reluctant to criticize the religious views of others. I am not. While fundamentalists have the right to participate in our politics, that participation has been a disaster for the country on issues ranging from abortion to education to civil rights to women’s rights. They’ve been a force for stupidity and intolerance since the so-called Moral Majority emerged in the 1970’s.

Here’s a little remembered fact: Barry Goldwater was an early opponent of Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, and their ilk. Goldwater despised their pious humbug and said he wanted to “kick Falwell up his ass.” Note the word up, which sounds extra painful.

For those only familiar with the 1964 model Goldwater, he was the rare true libertarian: He was pro-choice and later in life came out for gay rights because he had gay grandchildren.

Unlike Barry Goldwater, Mike Johnson is emphatically NOT a libertarian or true conservative. He’s a fundamentalist wolf in sheep’s clothing. He represents a community that considers the Indicted Impeached Insult Comedian to be some kind of messiah. That’s bizarre. Trump is like the money-lenders the founder of their faith drove from the temple. The notion that he’s the second coming is nauseating as well as deeply stupid.

Let me be blunt, Evangelical Christians are stupid. Their support for their orange messiah increased after he was indicted. That’s both stupid and crazy.

Repeat after me: Evangelical Christians are stupid.

I’m tired of being expected to tolerate the intolerant and intolerable. They can go fuck themselves. If they want to pray while fucking off, so be it. As a proud atheist, I don’t understand worshipping a wrathful, angry deity. The founder of the Christian faith was all about love, Donald Trump is all about hate. That’s the second coming?

Mike Johnson is the logical end product of decades of religious extremism and climate denialism. He’s the political equivalent of a cancerous tumor that has metastasized and spread through the body politic. He’s a pious hypocrite who believes in dangerous fairy tales about climate change and the Dipshit Insurrection.

Repeat after me: Mike Johnson is unfit to be Speaker.

Mike Johnson did not honor his own father, so why should we honor him? So much for Mike Johnson’s family values.

The last word goes to my countryman Steven Georgiou DBA Cat Stevens DBA Yusuf Islam: