Speaker Mike Johnson, Covenant Eyes, and why the media is lying about porn

Anyone who regularly reads my columns or listens to my podcast knows that I am a big fan of Covenant Eyes, the accountability software designed to help those struggling with pornography to get free and to ensure that those who are free of pornography stay that way.

Just in the past few months, I have interviewed the director of recovery education at Covenant Eyes, Sam Black, on his excellent new book The Healing Church: What Churches Get Wrong About Pornography and How to Fix It as well as Ron DeHaas, the CEO and founder of Covenant Eyes and one of the minds behind accountability software. In a culture saturated with pornography, Covenant Eyes is an essential service and tens of thousands – although not nearly enough – have benefited from it.

And so I was obviously interested when Rolling Stone ran what they clearly thought was a hit piece on the new U.S. Speaker of the House, the solidly pro-life and pro-family Mike Johnson under the headline “Mike Johnson Admits He and His Son Monitor Each Other’s Porn Intake in Resurfaced Video.” Pretty much everything about this piece is wrong, and it says more about the man who wrote it and the publication that ran it, to boot. An excerpt:

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson admitted that he and his son monitored each other’s porn intake in a resurfaced clip from 2022. During a conversation on the ‘War on Technology’ at Benton, Louisiana’s Cypress Baptist Church – unearthed by X user Receipt Maven last week – the Louisiana representative talked about how he installed “accountability software” called Covenant Eyes on his devices in order to abstain from internet porn and other unsavory websites.

‘It scans all the activity on your phone, or your devices, your laptop, what have you; we do all of it,’ Johnson told the panel about the app. ‘It sends a report to your accountability partner. My accountability partner right now is Jack, my son. He’s 17. So he and I get a report about all the things that are on our phones, all of our devices, once a week. If anything objectionable comes up, your accountability partner gets an immediate notice. I’m proud to tell ya, my son has got a clean slate.’

Notice, for starters, that the headline is false. Johnson and his son are not “monitoring each other’s porn intake” – they are committed to not watching porn at all, and are holding one another accountable to maintain that commitment. The headline is worded to give the impression that they watch porn – and indeed, plenty of gleeful wretches on social media took a brief break from Pornhub to make that claim. Furthermore, Johnson didn’t “admit” anything – he shared some excellent advice about having a porn-free home. Here, for the record, is the video:

Indeed, the author of the piece – Daniel Kreps – actually described using Covenant Eyes as “creepy Big Brother-ness.” Normal men, you see, watch porn. Which is as true as it is disgusting. He goes on to wonder whether Covenant Eyes might “compromise” Johnson’s devices and note derisively that Johnson is “Bible-believing” and “pro-life” (all right, all right – you don’t have to sell me on the guy!) The story is written as if some sordid information about Johnson’s past had been unearthed as opposed to more evidence that he is committed to both personal integrity and being a good father.

The rest of the media promptly adopted Kreps’ creepy tone. “Mike Johnson and His Son Monitoring Each Other’s Porn Intake Is Worse Than You Think,” lied The New Republic. “Mike Johnson Said He and His Son Monitor Each Other’s Porn Usage, and Yeah, It’s Exactly as Weird as It Sounds,” wrote some guy at Vanity Fair, who likely deletes his internet history as faithfully as Johnson attends church. “Mike Johnson Once Bragged That He and His Son Monitor Each Other’s Porn Watching,” said The Advocate in perhaps the most deceitful headline of them all. Esquire also called it “weird”; Newsweek grotesquely attempted to make a connection between Johnson and convicted sex offender Josh Duggar (as did a story by Business Insider). Jimmy Kimmel topped it all off with some stupid jokes: “So if his son looks at porn, his dad gets an alert. And if Mike looks at porn, his son gets an alert. It is possible to be too close with your children.”

This story is another example of just how wide the chasm between religious America and secular America has become. Rolling Stone’s “revelation” prompted a host of “explainer” stories from media outlets such as Business Insider (which referred to the “latest curiosity to emerge about the new speaker”) about practices that are common within the evangelical community, all of which have a Jane Goodall-among-the-chimps air about them. The reaction to this non-story, as I mentioned, says more about those who are shocked about it – to them, porn consumption is normal, which is why it is a standard punchline in sitcoms from Friends until now. The idea that there are Americans who not only oppose pornography morally but actually try to do something to remain free of its dark addictive power appears to be beyond their comprehension.

***

SUBSCRIBE TO THE BRIDGEHEAD SUBSTACK NEWSLETTER HERE.