Liz Skalka is a political reporter at HuffPost. She previously covered politics in the Midwest. Follow her on Twitter @lizskalka.
Rep. Mike Johnson takes the oath to be the new House speaker on Wednesday. He's been a booster of the Ark Encounter theme park and the Creation Museum in Kentucky.Before arriving in Washington less than a decade ago, House Speaker Mike Johnson, a deeply religious Christian, was a legal crusader associated with a fringe evangelical movement called “young Earth creationism,” based on a literal reading of the Bible’s Book of Genesis that posits the Earth is only several thousand years old.
“Kentucky officials are smart to enthusiastically embrace the Ark Encounter, and the millions of tourists the park will welcome to the area from every viewpoint, race, color, religion and creed,”. “Answers in Genesis aims to encourage critical thought and respectful public debate about the various attractions and ideas that will be presented at its park, and that is the beauty and essence of free speech.
But he has appeared sympathetic to the creationist cause and has fiercely defended its followers on First Amendment grounds. As a state representative in 2015, Johnson came to the defense of a Louisiana public school district under fire for making creationism and Bible study part of its curriculum — and offered to defend the district for free through his “Christian” law firm, Freedom Guard,who described being forced to learn what he called false evolutionary theories in school.
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