Rick Perry’s New Top Aide: Children’s Lives Will Be Harmed If America Has A Woman President

Rick Perry just hired a new Senior Director who takes a very biblical position on politics.

Rick Perry has made his conservative Christian values an integral part of his politics. Now the former Texas Governor is ramping up a likely run for the White House and forging his national political machine. Perry on Wednesday hired ordained minister Jamie Johnson to be the new Senior Director of his Political Action Committee. 

Johnson, a former Iowa radio broadcaster, was also the director of outreach for Iowa Right to Life and the Iowa Faith & Freedom Coalition, and was a Tea Party supporter involved in Iowa politics, as evidenced by this speech he gave in 2009.

Given Perry’s strong religious background – then Governor Perry launched his 2012 presidential bid by holding a national day of prayer in a $1 million event funded by the anti-gay hate group American Family Association – perhaps it’s no surprise he is comfortable with a Senior Director who used the bible to form anti-women beliefs.

In 2012, Johnson was a director in Iowa for then-candidate Rick Santorum. He sent an email stating children’s lives would be harmed if the country elected a woman as president, according to the Des Moines Register in January of 2012.

“The question then comes, ‘Is it God’s highest desire, that is, his biblically expressed will, … to have a woman rule the institutions of the family, the church, and the state?’ ” Johnson’s email read.

Johnson now insists that he is not opposed to women in office, and told The Guardian his email was “sent to one person, speaking as a pastor, to someone who is a personal friend of mine.”

Johnson emphasized this was a “private message” and not intended to be shared publicly.

“At the time his email was released, Peter Waldron, a Michelle Bachmann operative who later wrote a tell-all about the former Minnesota congresswoman’s fall from grace, claimed that it was part of ‘a sexist strategy‘ employed by Santorum’s campaign to win over social conservatives,” The Guardian notes. “Waldron said Johnson and other Iowa evangelicals were promoting ‘the idea that a female cannot be an elected official or a commander-in-chief.'”

Johnson told NBC News, “I was sharing my personal reflections with a friend through my private email account -– not the campaign account. They were reflections on over 25 years of formal, theological study,” and based in “classical Christian doctrine.”

 

Image by Gage Skidmore via Flickr and a CC license
Hat tip: Talking Points Memo