The Advocate has an article called “The Women of Gilead.” It talks about stuff we mostly know about, but zeroes in on a particular example of a woman who hates just about anyone who isn’t just like her (right-wing nutcase, quiverfull, stay at home mom, anti-LGBT, etc.). That would be Elizabeth Johnston, “The Activist Mommy,” who is quite the piece of work.

In social media, perhaps no one better exemplifies the Real Housewives of Gilead more than “The Activist Mommy” (a.k.a. Grace Elizabeth Johnston). She has a Facebook page with 150,000 followers and a popular YouTube channel. She is married to Dr. Patrick Johnston (more on him later) and has 10 home-schooled children. She is best known for video diatribes against transgender people, Muslims, the women’s marches, feminists, acceptance of gay people, abortion, and birth control.

She regularly pickets Planned Parenthood clinics and posts pictures of gay people along with the caption “Leviticus 18:22” (which got her a temporary ban from Facebook and made her into an instant online martyr for Christianity, of course). She advocates “using your womb as a weapon” for God. She also goes to Pride Parades in Ohio to tell queer people they’re abominations worthy of death, unless they become Christians exactly like her.

Her husband is even more radical. He opposed all abortions, and is leading a crusade to convince people to try to carry ectopic pregnancies (the number 1 cause of maternal mortality in the developing world) to term, based on an anecdote in a journal article from 1994, which was later proved to be completely falsified. He recommends executing everyone on death row immediately, and making homosexuality, immigration violations, and providing abortions (or aiding those who do) a capital crime. The sentence under a Patrick Johnston administration would be carried out immediately via biblical methods like stoning or crucifixion. Other lesser crimes, like breast-feeding in public, would be punishable with public flogging.

He’s also a doctor who opposes most vaccinations, (including polio, MMR, and pertussis), and recommends prayer as the preferred treatment for depression. He also suggests that people are mentally ill if they don’t want to own guns, and that people are fat because they are sinful. He states that “if you do not spank your kids you do not love them.” Dr. Johnston has also published racist articles stating that “the greatest threat to the African American community is the sin of African Americans.”

It would be easy to dismiss him, but he ran a credible campaign for District 94 of the Ohio State House in 2008 and his novel The Reliant is being turned into a movie starring Eric Roberts and Kevin Sorbo. He wrote another dystopian novel that envisioned how a glorious new Gilead would arise in a clash of cultures, “where the superiority of the principles of Christianity prevail over a plethora of vicious opponents.”

advocate.com