So now pretty much everyone has heard of Mike Johnson, the new speaker of the House. Right before the vote took place, his colleagues knelt down in sacred soladarity, gathering around him for a quick game of street craps.
Johnson is described as a “mild-mannered conservative,” meaning he may look normal but really he’s a Sleestak. He’s an evangelical Christian who believes that “the founders wanted to protect the church from an encroaching state, not the other way around.” Which is funny because it actually was the other way around.
In an interview with Fox News, he described himself as a “Bible-believing Christian,” as opposed to your average “Bible-doubting Christian.” He also said that in order to understand his politics, you just need to “pick up a Bible off your shelf and read it. That’s my worldview.”
Are you kidding me? That’s like saying if someone wants to understand me, all they have to do is pick up the AP Style handbook circa 1998. Actually that only explains my multiple career failures. Pick up a copy of The Canterbury Tales instead. (I dabble in Middle English.)
In that same interview, Johnson called the removal of religion from public schools tragic. “People are separating what is religious, quote unquote, with quote unquote real life, right? And that dichotomy was never intended by the founding fathers.” Actually that was precisely intended by the founding fathers. Quote unquote.
(Incidentally I think it’s fair to say that Mike Johnson is a pretty weird guy. To wit, he’s in a covenant marriage with his wife, which makes divorce more difficult, as opposed to a traditional marriage which comes with its own pre-approved no-fault divorce papers.)
The speaker once provided legal services to the fundamentalist Answers in Genesis group which, among other things, rejects evolution. In fact, they believe that the universe is only 6,000 years old instead of the 13.8 billion years as dictated by astronomers. Personally I believe it’s just 51 years old and was created solely for my benefit.
Answers in Genesis also retained Johnson to represent them in a lawsuit after tourism officials in Kentucky refused to grant them tax incentives for the construction of Ark Encounter. The theme park is a bible-based tourist attraction featuring a true-to-size replica of Noah’s Ark. Naturally the animals will come in by twosies, twosies.
The lawsuit was filed amid concerns that government incentives for a religious organization might violate the First Amendment. Luckily Johnson has it on good authority that the Founding Fathers never really wrote the First Amendment. Lin-Manuel Miranda did.
The creationist park also features a 100-foot Tower of Babel, a first-century Middle Eastern village, the real Moses, the 10 plagues, and the parting of the Red Sea. For the children, there will be a petting zoo, live animal shows, deadlifting the Ten Commandments, and a horrifying reenactment of Abraham about to sacrifice his only son.
Hey, this ain’t Disney World.
I do have a reason for focusing on Noah’s Ark. Just a couple of days ago, a group of archaeologists in Turkey located unearthed geological formations that they believe may belong to the real Noah’s Ark.
That’s the biggest lie I’ve ever heard. Everyone knows the real Noah’s Ark is in Williamstown, Kentucky.
The state of the union is we have a white christian nationalist second in the line of succession...with a wakadoodle wife that even Ginni Thomas, the insurrectionist, thinks is crazy...