When Republicans were scrambling to replace the impeached Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy after he was impeached on Oct. 3, the future of the vacant seat was up in the air.

McCarthy’s impeachment was triggered by internal divisions within the Republican Party, starting with opposition from ultraconservative GOP lawmakers dissatisfied with McCarthy’s leadership and culminating in a series of contentious events, including his handling of the debt ceiling negotiations and the appropriations process, leading to a historic vote that resulted in his removal from the position.

With the House Speaker’s seat empty, Republicans sought to quickly fill in the role. Enter Mike Johnson, a 51-year-old Republican Congressman from northern Louisiana who was elected to the House of Representatives in 2015.

In 2017, Johnson was elected to represent the fourth district of his state, and he is now on his fourth term in Congress. Throughout his roles in office, Johnson has been publicly vocal about his Christianity, and his denouncement of LGBTQ rights—even spearheading Stop the Sexualization of Children Act, the federal version of Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill.

Johnson was ultimately elected as Speaker of the House on Oct. 25. Later that day, Kelley Robinson, president of the nation’s largest LGBTQ advocacy group Human Rights Campaign, released a statement that described Johnson as a speaker who would be “the most anti-equality” speaker in U.S. history.

“This is a choice that will be a stain on the record of everyone who voted for him,” she wrote.

Prior to joining Congress in 2017, Johnson has had a long-standing and vocal opposition to LGBTQ rights, spending years building his career and profile by denouncing queer, trans and nonbinary people.

Reckon broke it all down so you can see it for yourself. Here’s the rundown of where the new U.S. Speaker of the House stands regarding all things LGBTQ-related:

What happened and why it matters:

Johnson’s history as an attorney for the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF)—a conservative Christian legal group now known as Alliance Defending Freedom—highlights his past harsh usage of anti-LGBTQ language.

At ADF in 2003, he filed an amicus brief in the Supreme Court’s case Lawrence v. Texas, arguing to allow states to criminalize same-sex consensual sex. The brief claims that sex between men should be banned because of the risk of spreading STDs more than sex between men and women, therefore posing a “distinct public health problem.”

The next year, in an editorial at his local Shreveport magazine The Times, Johnson published a story on his opposition to gay marriage. He called homosexuality a “inherently unnatural” and “dangerous lifestyle” that he deemed would end up in the legalization of pedophilia and even potentially destroying the “entire democratic system.”

The following year, he published another piece at The Times, titled, “Sexual orientation move should be opposed,” where he wrote: “Your race, creed, and sex are what you are, while homosexuality and cross-dressing are things you do. This is a free country, but we don’t give special protections for every person’s bizarre choices.”

Although Johnson’s contribution to Lawrence v. Texas case in 2003 failed, the final ruling to decriminalize same-gender sexualities echoes the sentiments we see today anyway, with legislative efforts of trying to criminalize trans people’s existence in public.

From bathroom usage restrictions, to barring sports participation, and even teachers’ requirement to disclose to families of trans students using chosen names and pronouns, experts say the trans youth of today are extremely vulnerable. Having Johnson as a Speaker at a time where trans rights are up in the air only jeopardizes what the future of this battle might hold, according to an Oct. 26 statement from GLAAD President and CEO Sarah Kate Ellis who described his nomination as “a blight in history.”

What happened and why it matters:

Johnson and ADF worked with Exodus International, a group that used religious and counseling methods to convert queer people to become straight. Exodus was also connected with ministries all over the world who were using these methods.

An archive of their website described their mission as: “Exodus has challenged those who respond to homosexuals with ignorance and fear, and those who uphold homosexuality as a valid orientation.”

Johnson, ADF and Exodus worked together in 2005 to establish the “Day of Truth,” which is a rebuttal of “Day of Silence,” a tradition in which students stay silent to bring awareness to the bullying LGBTQ students dealt with. The Day of Truth, however, sought to counter that silence by distributing information about what Johnson described as the “dangerous” gay lifestyle.

In a 2008 radio segment promoting the day, Johnson said, “Homosexual behavior is something you do, it’s not something that you are.”

As of today, 19 states and four U.S. territories have no protections against conversion therapy for minors—including Louisiana, according to the Movement Advancement Project. Affiliated with a Williams Institute study, 47% of LGBTQ youth (ages 13-17) live in states that ban conversion therapy for minors.

Even when Johnson established a “Day of Truth” in 2005, the American Psychiatric Association had already stopped treating homosexuality as a mental illness since 1973, while being trans does not merit a mental illness treatment since “gender identity disorder” was removed from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) in 2013.

What happened and why it matters:

Mike Johnson’s wife Kelly Lary Johnson runs a counseling business where the agreement compares homosexuality to bestiality and incest. According to HuffPost, the couple has been long-time business collaborators with each other.

In the late 90s, the two went on national television as the face of Louisiana’s new marriage covenant law, which makes getting a divorce difficult—shaped by a religious belief that claims divorce to be sinful.

Kelly’s business, Onward Christian Counseling Services, offers pastoral counseling using the Bible—something House speaker Johnson himself has referenced as a source of his worldview. Although his wife has taken the website down, writer of South Park and MadTV Toby Morton had already screenshot the site and took it to Instagram.

The website’s operating agreement said: “The agreement states that Onward Christian Counseling Services is grounded in the belief that […] puts being gay, bisexual or transgender in the same category as someone who has sex with animals or family members.” The agreement was notarized by Speaker Johnson, who signed it in 2017.

Critics of Johnson have found this paradoxical to his Christian values, especially after Johnson spoke out about how he and his son monitor each other’s porn consumption to hold each other “accountable.”

Sexual orientations, as defined by the American Psychological Association, refers to heterosexuality, homosexuality and bisexuality—not bestiality or incest. Prior to the 1973′s removal of homosexuality from the list of mental illnesses, same-gender sexualities was viewed par-to-par with other frowned-upon behaviors like bestiality, pedophilia and incest.

The danger in the Johnson couple’s counseling business is that it harkens back harmful, outdated and incorrect perceptions of queer people being comparable to nonconsenting animals.

What happened and why it matters:

On Oct. 26, during his press day after his election, Johnson sat down with Fox News to address concerns and comments about his anti-LGBTQ stances. In response, he said that his worldview is simply: “Go pick up a Bible off your shelf and read it.”

In his and his wife’s counseling business, they reference the Bible as their guide on viewing “any form of sexual immorality” as “sinful and offensive to God.”

His blatant opinions on the queer community in addition to his disinterest in LGBTQ rights comes in contrast with his demeanor, which many people have described as “polite.” However, it doesn’t change the extremity of his outdated and religious perspective on the community, and what harm that may cause.

There are millions of faithful Christians around the world who have come to recognize the work of God in and through the relationships of LGBTQ people, according to HRC. As New Testament scholar Daniel Kirk has pointed out, “God has already clearly embraced LGBTQ people into full communion, and it is now the church’s responsibility to simply honor that reality.”

Johnson’s usage of Christianity to validate his anti-LGBTQ viewpoints only further feeds into the idea that religion and gender and sexuality are mutually exclusive.

What happened and why it matters:

In March, Johnson co-sponsored a bill to bar young trans girls from competing in women’s and girls’ sports teams at federally funded schools to “protect children.” He eventually helped pass this bill.

This July, a House Judiciary subcommittee chaired by him held a hearing to “examine and expose” the alleged dangers of gender-affirming care for trans youth. In his opening statement, Johnson claimed that it is dangerous to coerce kids into transitioning and into believing they are transgender, ultimately “mutilated” by doctors.

“Something has gone terribly wrong, and deep down everybody in this country knows it,” Johnson said.

Despite the talking point that gender-affirming care equates to invasive surgical procedures and “mutilated” children’s bodies, toddlers can’t actually get gender-affirming surgeries.

Nationally-recognized medical guidelines recommend patients be at least 15 years old to receive the surgeries. Even then, it happens in rare circumstances. Johnson’s notion, like many other anti-trans right-wing opinions, spins the fact that gender-affirming care is to a person’s benefit, not detriment.

This year has seen an unprecedented wave of bills in legislation actively attempting to curtail LGBTQ rights with hundreds of bills introduced on the floor this year. According to Brian Levin, author of the 2023 Report to the Nation, a study by the CSUSB, there is a direct link between the negative rhetoric around queer, trans and nonbinary people along with the hate crimes that the community faces.

Guthrie Graves-Fitzsimmons, author of Just Faith: Reclaiming Progressive Christianity wrote for MSNBC’s Opinion column on Oct. 28 about Johnson’s weaponization of faith against queer people using the Bible. In his essay, he uses Johnson’s own terminologies that he used against the LGBTQ community to explain to him why Johnson’s views don’t align with the Christianity Graves-Fitzsimmons holds onto.

“It is destructive to the future of Christianity to make anti-LGBTQ views central to what it means to be a Christian,” he wrote. “Johnson’s crusade is physically dangerous to the lives of LGBTQ people, especially trans youth. His obsession with our sex lives is inherently unnatural, and his cruel ideology is deviant from the mainstream.”

Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg, who was the second ever openly gay presidential candidate, also spoke out against Johnson’s comments against the LGBTQ community.

“I will admit it’s a little bit difficult driving the family minivan to drop our kids off at daycare, passing the dome of the Capitol knowing that the speaker of the House sitting under that dome doesn’t even think our family ought to exist,” he told CNN on Nov. 3. “If being gay is a choice, that was a choice that was made way above my pay grade.”

From outdated homophobic tropes to the use of his religious faith in upholding anti-LGBTQ views, Johnson’s presence in a public and powerful role is bound to set back what many LGBTQ advocates have long fought for. Johnson’s views could very well contribute to a hostile environment for the LGBTQ community, and his position as Speaker of the House could have a detrimental impact on legislative efforts aimed at promoting equality and protection for LGBTQ individuals.

As Johnson settles into his newfound role, only time will tell what will be ahead of us.