The press has been digging into the past of the House's new speaker,
Mike Johnson, who, of course, is a far right conservative.
And the latest revelations from this investigative reporting
really has to do with his Christian faith and something that he attended
when his daughter was 13 years old.
This is back in 2015, when he attended a so-called purity ball
with his 13 year old daughter, Hannah.
And what these purity balls are really about
is having your daughter engage in a vow
to live a life of celibacy until marriage.
Now, the vast majority of girls who take this purity pledge then go
on to lose their virginity before marriage because they are human beings.
And most people don't get married at 16. But nonetheless,
let's give you the details.
This looks like a wedding.
A news reporter says in German in a 2015 MTV news segment
that was unearthed by ABC news.
But they are not bride and groom, but rather father and daughter.
The reporter adds, referring to Johnson and his then 13 year old daughter, Hannah.
Now, this was a segment that was done years ago again back in 2015, and I
should note that it's since been deleted.
But it was deleted after ABC news found it.
I'm just going to pause real quick and say, I think it's weird that ABC news
is doing investigative reporting on this.
But they did.
And I guess they thought that this would be interesting enough to the public,
to share details about it.
Now, the German news segment also documented Johnson and his family
preparing for and then attending the Purity Ball.
These were controversial former dance events popular among some conservative
Christians, and it did gain notoriety in the early aughts, in the early 2000.
And so we have some still frames from the original reporting
that was later taken down there.
You see Johnson having his daughter take the purity pledge.
He's putting a corsage on her wrist.
Linda Kay Klein, who's author of the book Pure Inside the Evangelical Movement
That Shamed a Generation of Young Women and How I Broke Free.
Well, she went on News Nation to explain purity balls
and what actually goes on at these events.
Let's take a look.
A purity ball is really something that, you've got a group of oftentimes
a very traditional purity ball.
You've got a group of young children, girls around the age of 12,
13 along there.
They're in gowns that are not just ball gowns, but white ball gowns,
wedding gowns in many ways.
And their fathers and together, their fathers are in suits or tuxedos, and
they have a dance and they have a dinner.
And it culminates at the end with this sort of placing of the purity ring,
often on the ring finger, the girl's ring finger as a promise to her father,
and also to her father in heaven that she will not defile her sexual purity
before marriage, not just not have sex, but to file her sexual purity in any way.
And then eventually, the idea is that this ring stays on her finger until
it is replaced by her wedding ring by her husband, which essentially symbolizes
the transfer of ownership over her sexuality from her father to her husband.
So a few more details about Johnson and his daughter.
So the news segment, the German news segment featured interviews with Johnson's
daughter, who, by the way, now is 20 years old and shows her at the Purity Ball,
pledging to her father to make a commitment to God, myself,
my family, my friends, my future husband and my future children to a lifetime
of purity, including sexual purity.
In between shots of Johnson nodding along in agreement, Johnson's wife,
Kelly Johnson, a Christian counselor, also told the German news outlet, quote,
we don't talk to her about contraception.
Sex before marriage is simply out of the question.
So, Jank, you and I again used to cover this type of story a lot back in the day.
I was a lot more judgmental and mocking of it.
I don't agree with this.
I think that what tends to happen is it's very likely that the people
who engage in this kind of purity ball then go on to lose their virginity
before marriage, and there's an element of self-hatred that arises from that because
everyone in their community has told them, the women in this case that really
like one of the most important things is that they don't engage in any
sexual activity until they're married.
I also don't agree with saving yourself for marriage.
I think that it might work for some people, but.
I, I don't, I like, I like to look at a home before I consider buying it.
I like to test drive a car before I consider taking out,
you know, a loan for it.
Like, I just. This is your entire life.
When you get married, it's not a joke.
You literally share your life with someone.
And if there's no chemistry when it comes to intimacy,
that could end up being a real problem.
Oh, yeah.
So, lots of thoughts here. And I've mixed, on this story, too.
So first of all, look, I'm basically from a different culture,
and that's the American secular culture, as opposed to the fundamentalist culture
that Mike Johnson and his daughter are in.
So when I look at it, it looks super weird to me.
They're like, first of all, you're having a giant ball over not having sex.
So like the whole point of it.
So it feels like when they, you know, the old line about,
don't think about a pink elephant.
What's the first thing that pops into your head?
Pink elephant. Right.
So they do this giant thing where they're like, now girls don't have sex.
Okay.
So it's probably going to be counterproductive at some point
knowing human psychology.
And in fact, we do know one thing about
these, among the attendees of these balls,
once they do wind up having sex, the rate of teenage pregnancy is much higher
because they're not using protection.
Okay.
That's, what happens a huge percentage of the time in these type of situations.
And, And to me the striking part was
what she, the guest there on Newsnation explained at the very end, the author.
It's a transfer of ownership and God, that's disturbing.
And I get it, you know?
Okay, the dad owns your sexuality and now the husband owns it.
And those are the only two people who should ever own it.
So I can't begin to to describe how much I disagree with that.
Go live your life. Go live your life.
Have fun. Don't listen to these stupid old rules.
I mean, I got married at 38. What if you didn't have sex till you're 38?
I feel for you, brothers and sisters. I'm not sure.
Look, I'm not making fun.
I feel terrible for you, but you made a terrible mistake, okay?
Go live life.
Now, having said all of that at the same time, I understand
that it is a different culture.
And they grew up in that bubble, and they grew up in that context.
And we look weird to them.
They're like, oh, these guys, they don't even mind sex at 29
before they got married.
Crazy, right?
And so to them, a giant cross in the middle of a ball and dancing with your 13
year old, all that in the ring, etc., that all looks like perfectly normal to them.
And so we've got to be cognizant of one another.
And if you're a religious person, or even if you're not a religious person
and you say, hey, I don't want my daughter or my son having sex until they're 18
and or out of the house or they're adults.
Yeah, we get it, we get it. That's not a crazy thing to think, right?
So that's like, as strange as it looks.
I understand that it's a different culture and that we have to all live
in the same country and be mindful and respectful of one another.
So but like the idea of the ownership thing, though, bugs me to no end.
So to me, if until 18 makes perfectly good sense, you're still trying to control
your daughter, as when she's a grown up and trying to tackle her from having fun,
I think that's nuts.
Yeah.
And by the way, I mean, according to a report from The Atlantic back in 2016,
they allege that only 3% of Americans wait until marriage to have sex.
And remember, Americans are getting married
when they're much older these days, right?
Usually in their late 20s, early 30s.
And so it makes sense to me that there's a growing percentage of Americans,
nearly all at this point, that end up engaging in intimacy before marriage.
Now, with that said.
Sorry, let me jump in there real quick because we just did a story, like last
week or so where Kellyanne Conway did some polling or the organization she was with,
and they were rushing out to DC to tell Republicans, hey, stop trying
to make, contraception illegal.
It turns out conservative women use it, too.
To which we said, of course, of course,
99% of women who are birth giving, age,
use contraception at some point.
And now this fact, which I didn't know, 97% of people have sex before marriage.
Conservatives.
Look, I'm trying to respect your culture, and I'm telling everybody it's different.
And don't get freaked out by it and let everybody live their own lives.
But at the same time, you guys got to realize you're lost.
It's not the old ways of like, oh, we keep everyone in a cave.
And they never they're perfectly pure.
And then we take that nice piece of property, I mean, my daughter, and then
we give it to the person who bought the property, I mean, their husband.
It's those days are gone, brothers and sisters.
And no matter how hard you try to hold on to it, it's not going to happen.
It just to the new reality.
It doesn't mean you lose track of your what you consider to be your morals.
You just have to do it in a different way. This isn't working.
So back in 2009, Janky You and I had covered a similar purity pledge.
It had to do with a celebrity.
Kevin Jonas, who had just gotten engaged. And so, honestly, I haven't seen this.
This is from 2009, so, guys, don't be mad at us.
If we said anything embarrassing and wouldn't be considered acceptable today.
But let's see what we said about them deciding to save themselves for marriage.
Kevin Jonas, just got engaged to be married.
I think that's huge news.
- It is. - Huge news.
He proposed to his 22 year old girlfriend of two years.
- And he's 21 years old himself. - And she's a hairstylist.
Okay. Disastrous decision.
You know, he's a virgin.
- No. No, that's. - What the Jonas Brothers are all about.
They wear purity rings, and they talk about virginity all the time.
- But overall. - Man.
Kevin Jonas said the rest of mankind.
Ha. Damage here. He did us wrong.
Because we all want to be in your situation and in your situation
to throw away all that tang, to get married at 21, because you're
the biggest blue balls in history.
Because your mom wouldn't let you have sex and you're a virgin or whatever.
Oh, man, you blew it.
As a young yank. I denounce and reject him.
Okay, alt right slash mainstream media have added Hoss.
- Okay. - Dude.
- Like, get off our balls, okay? - Get off our balls.
- Things change. - You know, get off our purity balls.
By the way.
By the way, you were wrong, Jake, because they're still together,
still happily married, so.
Interesting. Okay, good for them.
- And you see. - This?
Yeah. For sure.
This is this is, me, moderating, throughout my life as I've lived more
and interacted with people more and etc..
So, I'm super happy that it worked out for them.
Okay.
Totally. Yeah.
I don't agree with that lifestyle and the decisions that they made, but if
it worked out for them, then fantastic.
Totally.
And look, you know, sometimes people bring up those old clips as like,
oh, look at what kind of people.
You are, man.
And I actually like when I do it because it shows growth.
No one is the same after many years. And, you know, that was again in 2009.
And I like to see the growth.
I like to see, how we've changed and matured throughout the years.
But more importantly, I like to see how much our production
values have improved significantly.
I don't like to see how much weight I gain, but that's a whole different thing.
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