House Speaker Mike Johnson says the Roman Empire collapsed because of rampant homosexual behavior!

Get her!

Dear lord, this easily debunked shit again. Notice how this argument resurfaces every couple of years, and always from the same fuckers too.

Not even the Vatican itself would put out such a claim because they know damn well the collapse came after Christianity was made the official religion and homosexuality was starting to get frowned upon, if not outright outlawed (that came later under Justinian, after the "fall").

Imagine having a belief system that’s largely only valid within half of the population of one country.

This has always been one of the stupidest "explanations." It doesn't work even on its own terms. You would have to show that the Roman Empire (really the Western Roman Empire, the Eastern half is always forgotten here) but anyway you'd have to show that the empire went from banning homosexuality to condoning it. The opposite happened. As Christian God-botherers took over homosexuality became more and more unpopular and punished, and THEN the collapse happened. It's why Gibbon had the much more sensible theory that it was Christianity itself that really caused the collapse, as the empire descended into idiotic theological squabbles. That doesn't really hold up either, but still it at least looks at a change and speculates how that change might have affected things.

Oh hunny, doth protest too much.

Why doesn't he ask Chuck Grassley? He was there.

He is absolute scum.

There's all sorts of wrong about this guy.

Mike, shouldn't you be monitoring your son's porn watching with the Covenant Eyes app?

Mike has been researching this topic.

Just a reminder - he's second in line to the Presidency.

He dreams of twink ballsacks in his face every night.

Christian fundamentalists have been making the claim since the political rise of the Religious Right. And Mike Johnson has been repeating it for some years now.

How exactly does a little cocksucking lead to the decline of an empire?

I’d say stupid leaders were more likely to blame.

The Speaker of the House: a bigoted dunce. So depressing.

It fell because of Christianity. The gnostics and the Greek hierophants predicted and warned about it. There was a famous gnostic hiorophant whose name I don’t remember now, who wrote that this rising religion was an expanding dark cloud. He said that this dark cloud was going to bring much suffering and pain in the world.

What happened to stupid people accepting that their lot in life is being a plumber's assistant, restocking shelves at a gas stations and such and NOT aspiring to be politicians?

Rome was never stronger than it was under us.

There's a new murder show on ID called Cabin in the Woods. The last episode featured a southern fundie pastor and his devoted wife.

Pastor had lurid thoughts and got involved with a younger man. Took wifey on a vacay to an isolated cabin and beat her brains out. Tried to pass it off on a band of wandering crazies but all evidence led to him. Letters and diaries told the tale that their marriage had been a sham for a long while. Pastor was lusting after cock.

Poor wife made the most of her life as a pastor's wife until her Satan-driven deeply closeted man-loving religious hypocrite did her in.

Historians today would credit it to the division of the empire and the invasion of Germanic tribes.

But what do they know? Mike Johnson has a B.S. in business administration from Louisiana State.

Well, glad that mystery has finally been solved.

Thanks Mike. Appreciate your deep investigation into the matter.

Political instability, economic decline, military weakness, overexpansion, barbarian invasions, and the rise of Germanic tribes which ultimately led to the collapse of central authority and the division of the empire into separate regions are generally considered the primary causes for the fall of the empire.

Most notably INTERNAL CORRUPTION and division were both key factors. Rather than serving the interests of the Empire, rulers, generals, and politicians became more concerned with protecting themselves.

Deflecting much, Mike, or simply projection?

So glad you know so much about homosexuality, Mike.

How did you become such an expert?

Where did your interest in homosexuality begin?

At six when I lusted after the boy next door.

Unless ALL OF ROME was so busy ass-fucking that they forgot to fight the invading Gauls, no. Not correct.

I’m getting really tired of these Evangelicals and Trad Catholics fetishizing the Roman Empire. They literally dream about it. They enjoy their mistaken conception of it as a sort of White Dude paradise.

The division was exactly caused by Christianity and was not really introduced by real Roman, who respected their culture, religion and traditions, but by the emperors in what is now Turkey. Had real Romans from the Italian peninsula not given any power to those middle eastern people, Christianity would not have grown the way it did.

[quote] the rise of Germanic tribes

This is why we can't have nice things. Roman libertinism gave way to judgmental, rule-based, uptighy German austerity!

Maybe Rome fell because of a lack of anal hygiene....

It's all so silly r26. On top of everything, for its first 300 years, including its BEST YEARS, the Roman Empire was pagan. Whatever it was, it wasn't some big showcase for Christianity. If they want to fetishize it, fine, but they should note they are fetishizing a big ole pagan, bisexual empire that would despise all their bullshit opinions. (of course the Eastern Roman empire, misnamed the Byzantine Empire, was in fact Christian and lasted a thousand years, but for some reason they don't get into that one. Not quite white enough, I imagine, though you're right, the Western half wasn't really into white purity either.)

Has Mike Johnson researched whether the Romans were cut or uncut? I feel like he would somehow know the answer.

R29, trust me. The Germans are/were worse.

[quote] Maybe Rome fell because of a lack of anal hygiene....

Well, we know they were really into baths, big communal baths, one of the things that was probably really attractive about the whole deal. My guess is their anal hygiene was excellent, maybe better than ours if it comes down to a contest.

But they had a communal ass washing rag...

Bring back the Roman baths!!

He’s been watching too many gladiator movies.

Every criticism is a projection, Mike.

And masturbating to them, R36.

These morons keep talking about things that a non-weird person would never even think of.

[quote]Roman Empire collapsed because of rampant homosexual behavior!

So did the very liberal Weimar Republic (1918-1933).

Mike wants a deep dicking.

Nobody asked house speaker Mike Johnson a goddamned thing.

He talks to God!

He probably demonstrates to his adopted son what NOT to do with other men. For educational purposes!

"Men, acting like women. Men wanting to be with one another, men touching each other. Their stubbly chins rubbing up against one another. Touching each other. Manly hands touching swirls of of chest hair. An occasional wiff of a rugged aftershave. Their low, baritone voices sighing, grunting. They hold one another in manly, masculine arms. Hold one another. Tight."

Linsey Graham and Tim Scott both agree with the speaker.

Johnson is a Dicktator wannabe.

Cunt knows fuck all about history. Or much of anything

I'd be willing to bet good money that he's been fucking/ sucking the son all along and it'll all come out in due course. Something similar happened here with a similar cunt of a "Christian" politician

[quote]He probably demonstrates to his adopted son what NOT to do with other men. For educational purposes.

Doesn't everyone?

Oh, daddy...!

Republicans can be easily broken down into two groups: the con artists and the gullible.

[quote] Gibbon had the much more sensible theory that it was Christianity itself that really caused the collapse, as the empire descended into idiotic theological squabbles

I don't know what Gibbon's specific arguments were, but that doesn't make much sense given that the eastern empire, which was where the main idiotic theological squabbles and councils were taking place, went on for another millennium—losing territory in the long term, to be sure, but retaining its wealth and diplomatic power. (The western Roman provinces fell under local governance, mostly by the elites of Germanic migrant groups, by 500 and effectively became independent countries.)

There was no one cause to the collapse of the Roman:

Corruption and mismanagement in governing, for instance, were factors. The Roman genius lay in its ability to incorporate conquered territories, but in the century before 476 CE, were the peoples coming into the empire in the West becoming Roman or were the Romans becoming Germanic? The shift of the empire's focus from West to East after Constantine led to decline in the West. Christianity challenged traditional Roman values vis a vis poverty, the poor, spiritual conversion, and in its refusal to worship Roman deities, especially emperor-worship. Yet, Christianity's success lay in its adoption of Roman administration, Roman ideas of inclusion and universality.

I'd rather argue for the continuance of the ideals of Rome after the Fifth century CE. It's revived in the the Holy Roman Empire which lasted until 1806. The Byzantine Empire evolved from the Roman Empire and lasted until 1453. Roman ideas of governance found their way into the American constitution.

The austere, puritanical Romans themselves were appalled by the decadence of their fellow Romans. Christian writers condemning abusive Roman practices (slaughtering infants, domination any and all who were of lesser status) were influenced by Stoics condemning the same.

Johnson is a religious zealot with a simplistic understanding of history.

The thing about this statement - is that it's just the same statement parroted over and over again.

It's literally - 'my pastor or someone I trust told me Roman Empire fell because of lack of morals and homosexuality' - and that's all they need. They've never looked into it really - they just repeat it as the gospel truth. Which happens A LOT with religious people.

But for Johnson - it also helps to 'throw off the scent' about his own homosexuality.

The closet makes people crazy - Mike Johnson, Lindsey Graham, Roger Stone (exposed as bisexual), JD Vance - it's insane.

I might be engaging in some rampant homosexual behavior tonight.

I’m seeing some gross misrepresentations of Gibbon’s thoughts on Christianity. There is an extensive secondary literature specifically on this topic. If you have trouble sleeping, J.G.A. Pocock is good for this.

Maybe it did because there were no children being born?

Yeah, you're right r52. I probably half-remembering it, and I think there's also something about too much focus on the next world, etc., but as I said I don't think most historians think it holds up very well anyway.

Rampant is the best kind of homosexual behavior!

[quote]The closet makes people crazy - Mike Johnson, Lindsey Graham, Roger Stone (exposed as bisexual), JD Vance - it's insane

Is Lindsey Graham really in the closet? I know he’s never publicly announced he’s gay, but he’s made no pretense of being straight either. Has he?

He claims to have dated Laura Ingraham. I know...

Why do none of the proponents of the theory ever attempt a causal explanation? Even if homosexuality were an abomination, what is the mechanism?

Even as a young high school student, I could make no sense of the argument. I had already learned that the empire was christianized before its fall. How then was that compatible with rampant homosexuality? Had that same simple thought never enters his head in his half century of living?

The mechanism is people not going to the gun range enough, or not enough ground beef and ranch dressing in utero, R62.

Well r63, Evangelical Christians have very long training in never, ever having simple thoughts enter their heads. It's been built into an artform, and they exercise it, well, religiously.

I suppose the Great Depression was our fault too.

Yes, R60, he has publicly said he's not gay. He's also claimed he got a lot of puss in his military days (as an Air Force defense attorney?).