Newly elected Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, Mike Johnson (R- LA), has a long record, before he was in Congress, of advocacy on conservative Christian religious issues. Wikipedia reports:
Before his election to Congress, Johnson was a partner in the Kitchens Law Firm and a senior attorney and national media spokesman for the Alliance Defense Fund, now known as Alliance Defending Freedom. Johnson was also formerly chief counsel of the nonprofit law firm Freedom Guard.
In September 2016, Johnson characterized his legal career as "defending religious freedom, the sanctity of human life, and biblical values, including the defense of traditional marriage, and other ideals like these when they’ve been under assault."
Johnson served as a trustee of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission within the Southern Baptist Convention from 2004 to 2012.
Johnson came to some prominence in the late 1990s when he and his wife appeared on national television to represent Louisiana's newly passed marriage covenant laws, which made divorce more difficult legally.
Louisiana House of Representatives
After the 8th District seat was vacated in 2015, Johnson ran for the position unopposed....
In April 2015, Johnson proposed the Marriage and Conscience Act, a bill similar in content to Indiana's controversial Religious Freedom Restoration Act passed a few days earlier, though Johnson denied that his legislation was based on the Indiana law.
Johnson's Marriage and Conscience Act would have prevented adverse treatment by the State of any person or entity on the basis of the views they may hold with regard to marriage. Critics denounced the bill as an attempt to protect people who discriminate against same-sex married couples.
An e-mail statement from First Liberty Institute says that Johnson was also once a First Liberty attorney.
