Tag Archive for: Congressional Leadership

Dems Cave after Gaining Nothing for Weeks-Long Shutdown

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Who was responsible for the longest government shutdown in history? Look no further than those enraged at the news it may soon end. “The Democratic base is seething,” reports Politico. Liberal social media is on fire Monday, with activists, pressure groups, and wannabe Democratic senators and presidents falling over one another to condemn the deal in ever-louder terms.

On Monday night, the Senate passed legislation by a 60-40 vote that would fund the government through January 30. The House is expected to take the measure up as soon as Wednesday.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) and House Progressive Caucus leader Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) both promised to vote against the bill in the House, and even Democratic senators are slamming their eight colleagues who voted to reopen the government.

Their basic contention is that their Democratic colleagues effectively caved by flipping their votes for nothing more than a promised future vote on extending Obamacare subsidies — a Santa’s pack full of leftist sweets. Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) is expected to schedule a vote on an Obamacare bill prepared by Democrats sometime in mid-December.

But progressives are furious at failing to obtain their objective in the shutdown, which was to force the Republican majority to vote for the $1.5 trillion in new health care spending, which Republicans have never voted on before. If the Democrats’ gambit had succeeded, it “would have been the first time a minority party, Democrat or Republican, successfully extracted policy concessions by shutting down the government. That’s never happened before, and it ain’t happening now,” said Quena González, senior director of Government Affairs at Family Research Council, in comments provided to The Washington Stand.

Still, progressives know that they didn’t win anything out of the shutdown. As DNC Vice Chair Malcolm Kenyatta complained, “Any ‘deal’ that ends with Dems just getting a pinky promise in return is a mistake.” There was “no direct policy concession,” González explained. In fact, the deal that Democrats eventually took was one Leader Thune had offered weeks ago: keep the government funded now, to vote on Obamacare subsidies later.

This was a fair deal for Democrats, since House Republicans had passed a “clear” continuing resolution (CR), which kept the government funded at Biden-era spending levels. But Democrats rejected the deal for weeks, voting 14 times to reject that “clean CR.” “The hardcore Democrat base is set on extending the subsidies and shutting down the government pretty much indefinitely until they get their way,” observed González.

However, “the realistic wing of the party was already beginning to see what was never going to happen,” he added. The fact that Senator Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), the number two-ranking Democrat in the Senate, was one of the eight who crossed the aisle to fund the government shows that, “privately, Democrats knew that this day was coming,” González continued. “They knew that, if Republicans held together, they were going to have to compromise on this and that they were going to have to yield.”

To give cover for Democrats facing competitive elections to vote for reopening the government, they had to “have a sacrificial lamb in leadership to take a vote that everybody knew was going to have to be taken,” González explained. After Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) was roasted by his party for taking a similar vote this spring, the uncomfortable duty fell to his second-in-command (not that Schumer has avoided criticism this time). The 80-year-old Durbin doesn’t plan to run for reelection again anyway.

As a further sign supporting this theory, González pointed to the fact that “they got exactly enough Democrats” to advance cloture. “No Democrat who didn’t absolutely have to vote for it, did,” he said. “The vote tally was clearly very calculated. … And so, obviously, although Schumer was a big public ‘no’ on this, he was obviously whipping behind the scenes to make sure this thing passed.”

Ironically, even parts of the Democratic base had recognized the inevitability of this outcome. Weeks ago, government employee unions were already calling for Congress to pass a clean CR to reopen the government — exactly the plan Republicans had advanced.

The deal struck in the Senate does vary from the CR the House passed in September, which would have kept the government open until November 18. Thune plans to replace that text with one that keeps the government funded until January 30.

The new deadline is “a win all the way around for conservatives … really one of the best-case scenarios that we could have hoped for,” González argued. “Appropriators had wanted something that would end around Christmas time, so we’d be right back here over Christmas, and appropriators would have the upper hand to lard this thing up with earmarks and kill conservative provisions.”

The Senate deal also includes the three appropriations bills that have passed through committee in the Senate. “There’s a lot to be left to be desired in the Senate version of those, because those were designed on a bipartisan basis,” González conceded. “They left out a lot of the great stuff that was in the House version of those bills.”

In the end, though, the longest government shutdown in history ended up being “a futile attempt by Democrats to achieve something that they had to have known all along was improbable and probably impossible: winning policy concessions by shutting down the government,” González summarized.

Conventional wisdom holds that no one ever wins a shutdown. But oftentimes it’s more important in Congress to stop bad ideas than advance good ones. By sticking together, Republicans achieve that here.

Now that some Democrats have broken ranks to reopen the government, the media narrative that Republicans were responsible is exposed as the farce that it always was. “People who voted against reopening the government denounced the vote, and vow to fight on were never against the shutdown,” argued National Review’s Dan McLaughlin. “There is no way to reconcile the furious response with the wholly false claim that it was Republicans, not Democrats, who shut down the government. It was always a lie, and they always knew it was a lie.”

On MSNBC, former Harris aide Symone Sanders Townsend criticized the Democrats who caved. “If they don’t get anything but a promise to vote later, then how do Senate Democrats explain the last 40 days to the people who have suffered?”

That’s a good question, but the proper time to ask it was before Democrats caused the suffering.

AUTHOR

Joshua Arnold

Joshua Arnold is a senior writer at The Washington Stand.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2025 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Majority of Dem Voters Disapprove of Congressional Democrats

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For the past several months at the very least, President Donald Trump has dominated headlines. His populist economic and immigration policies, conflicts with federal courts, and interactions with foreign governments have captured the public’s attention for weeks on end. But despite the Democrat-led outrage against the president’s most controversial agenda items, blue voters are significantly unhappy with their party’s leadership.

According to a Quinnipiac University poll released Wednesday, most Americans (70%) disapprove of congressional Democrats’ job performance, while only 21% approve. However, a majority (53%) of Democratic voters themselves disapprove of congressional Democrats’ job performance, compared to only 41% who approve.

In comments to The Washington Stand, FRC Action Director Matt Carpenter explained, “Lately the Democrats have been on the wrong side of many of the so-called 80%-20% issues, but one issue Democratic voters and the American general public agree on is a strong disapproval of how Democrats in Congress are handling themselves.” He continued, “Unfortunately for Democrats in Congress, their base of support and the public at large agree on this point for different reasons.”

“The American people gave Trump a second term, with the first national popular vote win for a Republican presidential candidate since 2004, and a Republican Congress, to fix the border, enforce immigration law, tackle the cost-of-living crisis, bring some sanity to college campuses, end the pernicious gender ideology, and halt pro-abortion extremism,” Carpenter recounted. He continued, “The Democratic base is positioned diametrically opposite the Republican president and Congress on this agenda and want their elected representatives to do more to resist this agenda — which is incredibly popular among the average voting American.”

Carpenter concluded, “The Democrats in Congress are in a true catch-22. It would not be surprising to see some of the older Congressional Democrats announce their intentions to retire rather than run for reelection given their predicament.”

An Associated Press/NORC poll last month found that Democrats don’t have high hopes for their party’s future. Only 35% of Democratic voters were “optimistic” about the party going forward, compared to 36% who were “pessimistic.”

Some Democrats are disappointed with their elected representatives for not doing enough to oppose Trump and his agenda, despite Democrats introducing an attempt to impeach the president again and lobbying vociferously against his mass deportation program. But others are disenchanted with their party’s emphasis on policies and issues that, according to voters, are too extreme or too niche. A New York Times/IPSOS survey in February found that the majority of voters, including Democrats, consider the party to be out of touch with the priorities of most of America. Only 13% of Democrats, for example, listed LGBT issues as a top concern, while most voters reported that the emphasis the Democratic Party lays on LGBT issues is disproportionately high.

The Democratic Party was also found to be out of touch on economic issues. The overwhelming majority of Americans listed inflation and the economy as their top concerns, alongside health care and immigration, which aligned more closely with priorities voters ascribed to Republicans, while voters believed the Democrats’ top priorities to be abortion, LGBT issues, and climate change, none of which were issues voters considered important. A prior Gallup poll found that even though Democratic voters were more likely to rank abortion as a top issue than were Republicans or Independent voters, more Democrats cited the economy as a major concern.

AUTHOR

S.A. McCarthy

S.A. McCarthy serves as a news writer at The Washington Stand.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2025 Family Research Council.

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The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Republicans Brace for the Next Wave of Big Beautiful Debates

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When Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) hauled the “one, big, beautiful bill” over its first mountain — House passage — he had one request. To the GOP senators, he said, “I encourage them to modify the package that we’re sending over there as little as possible.” Thinking back over the warring factions in his chamber, he added, “Because we have to maintain that balance, and it’s a very delicate thing.” But in the days since last Thursday, it’s not clear if any Republicans, including the one in the White House, are listening.

Watching the House from a safe distance through its long nights, tense meetings, mark-ups, and ferocious jockeying for different priorities, senators sent a steady drip of commentary to the press about what they would change and language they thought could go farther. Now that the bill sits squarely in their laps, some have signaled at choppy waters ahead. While almost everyone is complimentary of the job the speaker has done, they also recognize that this is their chance to put a different mark on Donald Trump’s signature legislation.

“I want to get a deal done,” Florida Senator Rick Scott (R) insisted. “I support the president’s agenda. I support the border, I support the military, I support extending the Trump tax cuts … But [we’ve] got to live in reality here: [We’ve] got a fiscal crisis.”

Others, like Kentucky’s Rand Paul (R), have been more critical. For weeks, he’s tried to rally the troops to cut more spending. “… [T]he math doesn’t add up,” the chamber’s outspoken fiscal hawk warned. “They’re going to explode the debt by — the House says $4 trillion, the Senate’s actually been talking about exploding the debt $5 trillion.” Surely, he persisted, “there’s got to be someone left in Washington who thinks debt is wrong and deficits are wrong and wants to go in the other direction,” he said.

Johnson took the disapproval in stride. “I agree wholeheartedly with what my dear friend, Rand Paul, said. I love his conviction, and I share it,” he told Fox News’s Shannon Bream. “The national debt is … the greatest threat to our national security, and deficits are a serious problem,” the speaker said. “What I think Rand is missing on this one is the fact that we are quite serious about this,” the Louisianan emphasized. “This is the biggest spending cut in more than 30 years.”

The fault-finding isn’t a surprise. The speaker endured plenty of it from his own House circles, including perpetual nitpicker Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) who called the House package “a debt bomb ticking” before voting against it. Even the Senate’s Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) argued that the “number one goal of this reconciliation ought to be to reduce that 10-year and those annual deficits, not increase them.”

Sitting down with Family Research Council President Tony Perkins for “This Week on Capitol Hill,” the speaker was asked about the party’s concerns. Republicans say it “doesn’t go far enough,” Perkins prodded before asking for Johnson’s response.

A beat passed, and the speaker replied, “It took us many decades to get the country into the financial mess we’re in. We cannot flip a switch and fix it overnight, but,” he paused, “we have a responsibility to get us to begin to steer out of the debt crisis. This bill is truly historic in its scope and what it does for the first time in history.” Johnson continued, “This legislation is written so that we save $1.9 trillion with a ‘T’ in taxpayer funds. There’s never been anything like that. It’s twice as much as the last time Congress even attempted such a thing, which is more than 30 years ago. So truly historic in turning the aircraft carrier and beginning us on a new trajectory,” the speaker said, referring to his oft-invoked metaphor.

To those like Paul who complain that the debt ceiling hike only enables more spending, Johnson is emphatic. “We’re going to extend the debt limit — not because we’re going to spend more money, but because you have to do that to show the bond markets and the rest of the world that America is good on its debts. That must be done. Everybody knows that.” He invoked the White House. “President Trump is insistent about it. He says we’re not raising a ceiling to spend it. We’re extending the deadline so that we can get our fiscal house in order. This is a really important thing.”

And while the president has been enthusiastic about the House’s package, he created plenty of heartburn Sunday evening when he seemed to imply that the upper chamber should have its way with the legislation. “I want the Senate and the senators to make the changes they want,” Trump told reporters over the weekend. “It will go back to the House, and we’ll see if we can get them. In some cases, the changes may be something I’d agree with, to be honest.” Hinting at conversations he’s probably had with Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.), the president acknowledged there would be changes. “Some will be minor, some will be fairly significant.”

Reminded that the goal is to get the bill to his desk by July 4, Trump nodded. “I think it’s going to get there,” adding that Johnson and Thune “have done a fantastic job.”

While the two sides gather their energy for the reconciliation fight’s next round, the speaker has spent his time hammering away at the disinformation Democrats keep spewing about the bill’s supposed fallout. Repeating what he’s said a hundred times in a hundred different ways, Johnson reiterated, “We are not cutting Medicaid in this package. There’s a lot of [dishonesty] out there about this.” Pointing to one of the most outrageous examples of fraud, waste, and abuse, he quantified a problem that many suspected but didn’t have hard numbers on.

“[We’ve] got more than 1.4 million illegal aliens on Medicaid,” the speaker warned. “Medicaid is not intended for non-U.S. citizens. It’s intended for the most vulnerable populations of Americans, which is pregnant women and young single mothers, the disabled, the elderly. They are protected in what we’re doing, because we’re preserving the resources for those who need it most.” Then he put the spotlight on the other problem, the legal, work-capable citizens who were added to the rolls under Joe Biden. “You’re talking about 4.8 million able-bodied workers, young men, for example, who are on Medicaid and not working. They are choosing not to work when they can. That is called fraud. They are cheating the system. When you root out those kinds of abuses,” he stressed, “you save the resources that are so desperately needed by the people who deserve it and need it most. That’s what we’re doing.”

And it’s not just the Medicaid soundbites they’ll have to confront but the headlines about the proposal’s “score,” as in how much the government’s financial experts at the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) believe it will add to the deficit. But, as the Louisiana leader cautioned, there’s almost always more to that than meets the eye. “The last time they scored a big bill like this was the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act in the first Trump administration,” he explained to Perkins. “They were $1 trillion off in their calculations.”

To put the process into perspective, he noted that “the CBO is run by Democrats,” adding that “84% of the employees there who are crunching the numbers are donors to big Democrats like [Massachusetts Senator] Elizabeth Warren and [Senator] Bernie Sanders. So we dismiss that,” the speaker said. “What they do not count for is the pro-growth policies in this bill that [are] going to grow the U.S. economy. And that is how, in combination with savings, we’re going to get ourselves out of this mess.”

Still, Johnson underscored, as he has so many times, “We value everybody’s opinion. … You know, my background is in constitutional law. I’m a student of what the Founders originally intended for how the process was supposed to work. The United States Congress is the greatest deliberative body in the history of the world. It works so well, but only if it’s done as designed.” He thought back on his predecessors and other leaders who drafted major legislation “in a back room, by quite literally a handful of people. I didn’t want to do that, because I think we’ve got to get back to what was intended.” Everyone should have a voice, he insisted. Does that take longer? Absolutely. Is it more painful? His chamber just proved it was. “But it’s always worth it in the end … and it makes a better product.”

What will happen to the 1,100 pages he poured over for months? The speaker doesn’t know. But there’s one tool he’d suggest for everyone facing these big obstacles: “prayer.” “It’s not been in vogue in Washington for quite some time,” Johnson reflected, “and I’m just bringing it back. It seems like some huge innovation, but that’s exactly how our nation began. And I think we do well to remember it.”

AUTHOR

Suzanne Bowdey

Suzanne Bowdey serves as editorial director and senior writer at The Washington Stand.

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2025 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Proxy Wars: Johnson Fights to Keep House Voting the Way Our Founders Intended

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People wouldn’t blame House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) for trying to find some breathing room in his microscopic majority. Last week, Americans saw how seriously Republicans are taking their whisper-thin margins when President Trump pulled his nomination for Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.), surprising everyone by sending her back to Congress to provide some much-needed GOP backup. But as much sleep as Johnson has lost trying to count noses on key votes, there’s one gimmick he refuses to consider.

When Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) was in Johnson’s shoes — clinging to the slimmest majority in a generation — she got incredibly creative to arrive at the numbers she needed on any given bill. Turns out, having control of Congress when a global pandemic swept through the country was unusually kind to the Democratic Party’s agenda. Recognizing that she couldn’t afford to lose a single vote — especially on the extreme legislation that her more moderate members opposed, Pelosi instituted a rule that let members vote from somewhere other than the House floor. And while the policy was supposed to be a temporary measure in the early months of COVID, the Democratic leaders managed to extend it well beyond the point of rationality.

As The New York Times chronicled, Pelosi’s “proxy voting” was exploited for months as members decided it was “too dangerous” to go to Washington (but perfectly fine to attend packed-out local political fundraisers). “It’s a huge scandal,” Republican Mike Gallagher (Wis.) argued at the time. “Members have been signing their names to a straight-up lie.” “It indulges the worst impulses of the modern congressman,” he insisted, “which is to spend all their time flying around the country, raising money, and avoiding all the nuts and bolts of legislative work.”

When Pelosi first announced a proxy voting system back in May 2020, the idea was so controversial that more than 160 Republicans sued. “Our founders intended that Congress convene and deliberate,” the GOP argued. “The Constitution requires a majority of members be present to constitute a quorum to conduct business.” After all, they argued, since the first session of Congress in 1789 through 2020, members have had to be present to vote. This current ruse, conservatives fumed, is nothing but “heavy-handed partisan maneuvering.”

Two years later, with the public health threat largely behind us, the practice made even less sense. And yet, no-show voting was such a powerful tool for the Left that Democrats were reluctant to let it go. “Despite a narrow, ten-member majority in the House, Speaker Nancy Pelosi has been able to control her caucus in part because members who couldn’t make it to Washington could still vote,” Time Magazine pointed out.

When Johnson’s predecessor, Kevin McCarthy, won the gavel, conservatives did away with the Democrats’ racket, insisting that members again be present on the House floor to vote. But now, much to some people’s surprise, the concept is making the rounds again — this time in Republican circles.

Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) is pressing the issue in what’s been described as a “narrower” version of proxy voting that would only apply to new parents in Congress. Against most Republicans’ wishes, she took the unusual step of forcing the bill through a discharge petition, a weapon typically used by the minority party. Under her proposal, a congressman or woman could designate a fellow member to vote on their behalf for up to 12 weeks while they’re home with a new baby. And while it sounds like a reasonable concept at face value, the implications, conservatives warn, could be far more dangerous than Luna or others realize.

“It’s not like all 435 members are gonna run out and get pregnant, then all of a sudden you’re gonna have a massive vote by proxy,” Luna argued. “That’s simply not possible, also too, not the case.” But Johnson, who’s a devoted family man, still cautions that the idea is a bridge too far. “It sounds good on the surface,” Family Research Council President Tony Perkins agreed on Saturday’s “This Week on the Hill,” but where do you draw the line?

“It’s very problematic,” the speaker wanted people to know. “And look, I’ve talked with Anna about this at great length, and she’s also a dear friend. … [H]er motives are pure,” Johnson said. “… She’s in her 20s, she’s a young mom. And she had a baby recently, and she had to miss some votes. And so, she wants to change the rules [to] say any young family that has a baby, that that member of Congress, either the wife or the husband, doesn’t have to show up for 12 weeks. And I just think it’s a real problem.”

The reality is, he continued, “We sympathize with all our colleagues, many of whom face circumstances that prevent them from being present in Congress. But proxy voting raises serious constitutional questions that change more than two and a half centuries of tradition. It abuses our system,” Johnson emphasized, “and it creates a slippery slope toward more and more members casting votes remotely. Because if we could change the rules for this with a discharge petition — which is really a tool of the minority party, not the majority — then all bets are off. You’ll have other people who will bring discharge petitions for a number of other things,” the speaker explained, “and it will just become totally chaotic. So I hope that that doesn’t pass.”

On Monday, Luna sent a fiery letter to the House Freedom Caucus, resigning from the group for their lack of support for her petition. Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas), who was an ardent critic of Pelosi’s proxy voting four years ago, responded, posting, “Respectfully to my friend — this (unconstitutional) rule would ultimately NOT be limited to moms. Cancer patients, dads, & worst of all, people who lazily abuse it (eg, voting from boats). She leaves out [that] her discharge allows no amendments! We should show up to work/vote.”

In response to the criticism, the speaker pointed out, “Look, I’m a father. I’m pro-family. [But] here’s the problem. If you create a proxy vote opportunity just for young parents, mothers and, the fathers in those situations, then where is the limiting principle?”

At the end of the day, Johnson reiterated to Perkins, “This is a Nancy Pelosi invention. Proxy voting had never been allowed in Congress until Nancy got the gavel. And we went to court to stop it. In fact,” the speaker reminded listeners, “I was a plaintiff in the lawsuit. We went and took the case all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court to try to declare proxy voting to be unconstitutional. The problem is … the court punted, and they said they didn’t [want] to address it. … They thought it would be a separation of powers problem if the court stepped in and told us how to do our business. So … that really underscores the importance of us handling this on our own.”

Of course, the interesting piece of this internal feud is that Johnson, of all people, stood to benefit from a proxy system in a chamber where he’s hanging on to the majority with his fingernails. Instead, he took the ethical path, refusing to make votes easier for his party just because the shoe was on the other foot. As FRC’s Quena Gonzalez told The Washington Stand, “The speaker put constitutional principle above political gain. That’s rare in Washington. It doesn’t earn you many friends,” he admitted, but in the long run, “it will earn him continued respect from his colleagues and opponents.”

AUTHOR

Suzanne Bowdey

Suzanne Bowdey serves as editorial director and senior writer at The Washington Stand.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved. ©2025 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Lose—Lose: Mike Johnson, Pornography, and the Scorn of the Left

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Pornography is one of the Left’s favorite political tools. It can be used to cudgel, browbeat, castigate, and shame conservatives into silence — a potential that leftists capitalize on every chance they get. The best part about it — for leftists, at any rate — is that it’s a double-edged sword, as the case of newly-minted speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-La.) makes evident.

Most of the time, lefties berate conservative leaders who get busted using pornography. Look at Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) back in 2017: when Cruz’s Twitter account “liked” a pornographic tweet, leftist media outlets began their bullying, including trying to link Cruz’s political career and personal history to an obsession with the porn industry. It was later revealed that a staffer with access to the Twitter account liked the video, but the cudgeling, browbeating, castigating, and shaming had already begun.

This is the most effective use of porn as a political tool, as it not only isolates the outed conservative from his typically-not-fond-of-porn voter base, but also labels him a hypocrite, as the conservative ideology (and even the Republican Party platform) condemn porn use. But this time around, leftists are taking Johnson to task for… not watching porn.

That’s right, in a recently-resurfaced video clip, Johnson stated that he uses Covenant Eyes, an online filter and accountability program that blocks porn from laptops and cell phones and sends a designated accountability partner a regular update on websites visited. During a panel discussion entitled “War on Technology” hosted last year at Cypress Baptist Church in Benton, Louisiana, Johnson explained that Covenant Eyes had been suggested to him at a marriage conference called “Promise Keepers.” Conference speakers also suggested fathers sign up their sons once they hit the teenage years and serve as their sons’ accountability partners. Following this advice, Johnson signed up his teenage son for Covenant Eyes and the two have been one another’s accountability partners, receiving daily reports on what websites the other visited. He quipped, “I’m proud to tell you my son has got a clean slate.”

Left-wing media pundits and publications have, predictably, piled on Johnson for his position on porn. The vociferously pro-LGBT outlet “Pink News” wrote, “The revelation is yet another example of Johnson’s conservative views, which include him making a number of anti-LGBTQ+ and anti-abortion statements.” The online magazine also asked, “Should House Speaker Mike Johnson allow third-party surveillance apps on his personal devices?”

The far more mainstream Rolling Stone piled on, “Since he was elected Speaker of the House in October, Johnson’s history as a faith-obsessed, election-denying, far-right Christian nationalist has come under the microscope…” and referred to using porn-blocking and accountability software as “creepy Big Brother-ness…” The “Receipt Maven” Twitter account, which resurfaced the original clip, quipped, “[S]o basically don’t watch porn or your son/dad will know…”

Thus far, pornography has been declared a public health emergency in 16 different states: Arkansas, Arizona, Florida, Idaho, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Montana, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, and Virginia. The detriments of pornography are myriad — physically, psychologically, emotionally, and spiritually. This quadfecta affects practically every aspect of the human experience.

Physically, pornography has been shown to cause severe erectile dysfunction in men and reduce sexual activity among couples; coupled with psychological effects, which include depression, anxiety, irritability, decreased self-esteem, decreased motivation, neglect for responsibilities and deadlines, and the altering of the brain’s chemical makeup, these first two categories alone are enough to label pornography detrimental. The effects of pornography on emotions are equally alarming — if not more so. Increased aggression and violence, a deep sense of shame and guilt, and an inability to see other human beings as anything but objects are just a few examples of the emotional toll porn use can take.

As horrific as all of this is, pornography may be most destructive in the spiritual quadrant. Porn use dulls and dims the soul’s ability to see others as being made in the image and likeness of God (Genesis 1:26-27) and instead encourages the soul to turn inward upon itself, consuming others as meat instead of giving of oneself lovingly. Porn use destroys discipline, which impacts everything from fulfilling one’s professional and household duties to making time regularly for prayer. The sense of shame and guilt which accompanies porn use may also drive a soul away from God, too ashamed to seek His forgiveness.

Scientists have often noted that porn use typically progresses into more and more depraved categories. Scientifically, this is because the brain has become so desensitized to the images it sees that, in order to produce the dopamine the porn addict seeks, more extreme imagery must be viewed. In his novel “That Hideous Strength,” the great Christian author C.S. Lewis described this depraved progression of lust:

“It is idle to point out to the perverted man the horror of his perversion: while the fierce fit is on, that horror is the very spice of his craving. It is ugliness itself that becomes, in the end, the goal of his lechery; beauty has long since grown too weak stimulant.”

Spiritually, this seeking out of the more and more depraved, the more and more perverse is even more startling. As most Christians know, virtue is the bending of one’s own will to align with God’s. Those whom we consider holiest, noblest, and most saintly are those whose wills are so in accord with God’s that there is little discernible difference. Cultivating such virtue, of course, is an arduous and even a lifelong task — it is no mere matter of wishing or wanting, and its demands are often high. The martyrs are prime examples of this: from Peter and Paul to Maximilian Kolbe and Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the ardently virtuous offer their wills to God so completely that their very lives come along with them. Although all are, of course, made in the image and likeness of God, the virtuous are those who clarify that image and let it shine brightly and colorfully forth.

Conversely, those who live according to vice turn away from the image of God and remake themselves in the image of Hell. They bend their wills so far away from God’s own that they actually run in the opposite direction. Pornography is a horrifically illustrative example of this principle. God, of course, created sex. He made it to be something beautiful, intimate, loving, life-giving, and self-sacrificial. In fact, sex is itself also made in the image of God: God’s love is so great, so filled is He with love in each of His three persons, that He had to make that love flesh, it had to spill over into new life: mankind.

So also did God create sex to be a blessed marital act mirroring the love of the Trinity, a spilling over of a joyful, self-giving love that bears both spiritual fruit and, if God wills it, the physical fruit of a child. Porn warps and distorts this beauty, it takes the image of God out of sex and turns the whole act inwards upon itself, becoming a matter only of predatory self-satisfaction. No longer the giving of oneself in love and the openness to new life, porn is simply the consuming of others, stripping them of not just their clothes but their God-given dignity, their very humanity.

The progression of the pornographic perversion from one dehumanization to an even greater and more vile dehumanization is indicative of the soul’s turning away from God and remaking itself more and more nearly in the image of Hell, where, without sincerely repenting and accepting God’s grace and forgiveness, it will surely spend eternity.

Before his execution, Ted Bundy — the notorious serial killer who confessed to the kidnap, rape, and murder of 30 women — spoke to Dr. James Dobson of Focus on the Family about the link between his depraved crimes and pornography. Bundy told Dobson that between the ages of 10 and 13, he began a fascination with “soft-core” pornography. He explained, “I would keep looking for more potent, more explicit, more graphic kinds of materials. Like an addiction, you keep craving something which is harder, harder. Something which gives you a greater sense of excitement. Until you reach the point where the pornography only goes so far.” Bundy stressed that, to all those around him, he was the image of a “normal person,” even the “All-American boy.” But, he said:

“I think people need to recognize that those of us who have been so much influenced by … pornographic violence are not some kinds of inherent monsters. We are your sons, and we are your husbands. And we grew up in regular families. And pornography can reach out and snatch a kid out of any house today. It snatched me out of my home 20, 30 years ago, as diligent as my parents were, and they were diligent in protecting their children.”

Bundy was executed in 1989, back when pornography was only available in magazines and on VHS tapes bought at seedy downtown shops or smuggled from friend to friend at school. The pervasive nature and instant accessibility of internet pornography was something Bundy never witnessed. If pornography could “snatch a kid out of any house” in 1989, it now invades homes and devours children alive through their phones, tablets, and laptops. A recent survey by Common Sense Media found that 73% of teens reported they watch online pornography and over half reported that they had been exposed to pornography by the age of 13. Sadly, 15% admitted that they had seen porn before the age of 11.

As a devout Christian, Mike Johnson knows that it is his fatherly duty to protect his children from the soul-sucking scourge of pornography. Holding his son accountable through using Covenant Eyes in order to cultivate the virtue of chastity is not freakish, backwards, repressive, or controlling — it is noble, loving, caring, and truly masculine. What father would want to condemn his son to a life suffering from erectile dysfunction, emotional instability, an inability to experience emotional and sexual intimacy, a crippling addiction, exponentially-worsening depravity, and spiritual suicide?

It should be no surprise that the same mob which shows no concern for the blood of untold millions of unborn babies would deride a father for shielding his son from the horrors of pornography. Instead, leftists’ mockery of Johnson reveals their obsession with pornography. While they may take a flippant “lose-lose” approach to conservatives and porn — conservatives lose for getting caught looking at porn and lose for actively avoiding it — Johnson clearly takes the Christian approach: recognizing that both he and his son have lost if he doesn’t protect his son from the perverse cancer of pornography.

AUTHOR

S.A. McCarthy

S.A. McCarthy serves as a news writer at The Washington Stand.

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2023 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Speaker McCarthy, Leaders Gather for Prayer and Repentance

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On a snowy Wednesday morning in Washington, D.C., hundreds of people made their way to the Museum of the Bible for a unique event: the National Gathering of Prayer and Repentance. Before dawn had even broken across the city, almost 60 speakers from different nations, organizations, political districts, and backgrounds responded to God’s call to humble themselves and seek His face.

“What you’re about to see,” Family Research Council President Tony Perkins said, “is something you won’t see on MSNBC, CNN, or even Fox — that is, members of Congress who are praying and crying out to God. … Know that God is answering your prayers, America,” Perkins urged, “by raising up leaders who love Him and fear Him.” Led by House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (Calif.) and House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (La.), 16 Republicans from across the country — Mary Miller (Ill.), Brian Babin (Texas), Rick Allen (Ga.), Michael Cloud (Texas), Robert Aderholt (Ala.), Tracey Mann (Kan.), Burgess Owens (Utah), Michelle Steel (Calif.), Gary Palmer (Ala.), Warren Davidson (Ohio), Randy Weber (Texas), Brandon Williams (N.Y.), Diana Harshbarger (Tenn.), Dan Bishop (N.C.), Nathaniel Moran (Texas), and Mike Johnson (La.) — took turns confessing sin and asking for God’s wisdom in the days ahead.

“We have lost our way,” Congresswoman Miller admitted, “because we have rejected you as Creator, Lord, and Savior. Now we are adrift and foolish, calling evil good and good evil. …We most humbly ask you to intervene, deliver us here in Congress and in our country from going our own way and thinking our own thoughts. Please, Heavenly Father, take the scales off our eyes. Help us to acknowledge our need of You. Our need to weep and mourn over our pride, our immorality, child abuse, and idolatry. Draw us back to you and to your word.”

Rep. Bishop asked forgiveness for a nation that has failed to understand “our dependence on You — for imagining that our blessings have come by virtue of our merit, our entitlement, our intellect, our effort.” We repent, he continued, “for acquiescing in the status quo. Forgive us for our lack of courage, our resignation, our cynicism, our hopelessness, our narrow self-interest, and ambition. Forgive us for making our government an idol and then for turning a blind eye as its instrumentalities have accumulated power and turned it against the humanity, the dignity, and the rights with which you have endowed the people. You ask who will go for me and whom will I send? Lord, send me. Forgive us, Jesus, King of all nations.”

After Leader Scalise read Psalm 33, Speaker McCarthy turned to the audience and said he was also asked to share a Scripture, but decided he’d like to “pray and read, if that’d be all right.” He started by thanking God that “we can still honor Your word, study Your word, and teach the next generation.” He asked for the Lord’s blessing on the leaders of Congress who joined him on stage and those who weren’t there today. “I want you to open their hearts. I want you to help them be bold.”

Then, knowing the difficult debates facing both parties, the speaker prayed for the president. “Father, you know I will meet with him today. Father, I ask that you open both of our hearts … that our meeting [would seek] your truth and help for this nation. … [W]e continue to seek your guidance. We ask that you give us the patience of Job. We ask that you give us the intellect, the leadership that you gave David.”

Perkins, who co-hosted the event along with Pastor Jim Garlow, also welcomed Anne Graham Lotz, Ambassador Sam Brownback, Rabbi Jonathan Cahn, former congresswoman Michele Bachmann, Pastor Carter Conlon, and 19-year-old Jacob Kersey, who recently resigned from his Georgia police department when he came under fire for posting a Bible verse about marriage.

Kersey pointed out how much we take for granted the privilege of coming before God in prayer. He lifted up the 800,000 “brave men and women serving in law enforcement,” many of whom are “excellent examples of strength, fortitude, character, and integrity.” “But Father,” he admitted, “we have problems too. We’re sinful human beings. And the events in Memphis and Minneapolis shed light on our brokenness and sin. … We need the Prince of Peace, Jesus. We need you.”

Too many believers, Brunson said — “many teachers of the church” — “have become ashamed of the clear teachings of Jesus Christ. Many care too much about maintaining respectability and social standing and … are not willing to stand against the mainstream of our society, to go against the current. There are all kinds of ways to rationalize compromise. We need to repent and love the truth.”

Luke wrote that “there would be times of distress with perplexities,” Bachmann explained, “meaning that the days would become so difficult that the problems would be humanly impossible to solve. That is our day,” she insisted. “And so it is altogether fitting and proper that we come to our Father with prayers and repentance. It is the only way. It is the best way. It is the right way. It is the healing way. It is the life giving way.”

To watch the National Gathering for Prayer and Repentance, click here.

AUTHOR

TWS Staff Report

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved. The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.