Is MAGA podcaster Benny Johnson another closeted gay guy on the far-right?

Or maybe bisexual? The influencer who helped blow up FCC chair Brendan Carr's attack on Kimmel, has pushed ugly anti-LGBTQ garbage. Now questions are being asked.

Benny Johnson, the former BuzzFeed staffer-turned-influential MAGA podcaster, thought he’d scored a big hit last week in helping the FCC’s Chair Brendan Carr get ABC to put Jimmy Kimmel on “indefinite” suspension.

Johnson has a huge reach in MAGA, and has been a reliable tool offering a platform for MAGA leaders to do their dirty work. Carr went on his program to bring the hammer down on ABC regarding Jimmy Kimmel.

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“We can do this the easy way or we can do this the hard way,’” Carr told Johnson, regarding ABC having to take action against Kimmel.

As Senator Ted Cruz would later put it: “That’s right out of ‘Goodfellas.’ That’s right out a mafioso coming into a bar going, ‘Nice bar you have here. It’d be a shame if something happened to it.’…What he said there is dangerous as hell.”

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Of course, in the end, Johnson did not score the hit he may have hoped for, and neither did Carr. Jimmy Kimmel came back to the airwaves, as public pressure built on Disney, and eviscerated Donald Trump and Carr in his monologue. Kimmel’s return drove Trump nuts, as he threatened ABC with another lawsuit just hours before Kimmel went on the air—and ironically helped promote the show further.

And now more attention is being focused on Johnson. Progressive podcaster Keith Edwards has received over 480,000 views within a day on his YouTube post, laying out evidence that suggests Johnson is someone who has had sex with men while married to a woman with whom he has children who he often displays, promoting a heterosexual MAGA lifestyle. You can watch the video below.

Johnson not only has pushed ugly rhetoric mocking LGBTQ people, focusing on Michele Obama; he’s actually given talks in which, like others in the manosphere, he’s implored young men to “find a woman” if they want to be an “immovable mountain” and a “strong alpha” MAGA man.

Much of what Edwards points to is information that has already been public. Edwards reports former BuzzFeed writer and noted queer author Saeed Jones having posted on social media last year that he “made out” with Johnson at the BuzzFeed holiday party in 2013 and that “it haunts me to this very day.”

Jones wrote, “I’m definitely not the only man Benny Johnson has made out with,” and that “men will literally become traitors to their country rather than go to therapy.”

Also, Milo, the openly gay onetime star of the alt-right during Trump’s first time, posted a question on social media to which Edwards points.

Milo then gives the initials of the person as, “BJ” and writes, “and that’s how a thousand 20-year-old Turning Point USA volunteers will remember him.” Milo even shared a text message he sent to Johnson, commenting on his “chutzpah.”

Edwards points to Johnson once remarking on why he’s getting gay-oriented ads on a right-wing website he’s visited, implying that the right-wing website took the ads.

But in fact, as Edwards explains, this is because of cookies on web browsers. You’ll get ads popping up and targeting you that are related to sites you previously visited—in this case, gay-oriented sites. How Johnson didn’t figure this one out is astounding, but it’s a self-own regarding what sites he’s spending time on when cruising the web.

Edwards concludes that this guy who “wraps himself up in Christianity” (I would add it’s a certain brand of Christian nationalist evangelicalism that is extremely anti-LGBTQ) and “pretends like he’s an alpha male” and “who pushes out propaganda” obviously “has a big secret that he just needs to get real with.” And until he does, Edwards says, “he should stop pointing fingers until he can look himself in the mirror.”

Those who know my history in journalism know I believe it’s important to report on public figures’ sexual orientation if it’s relevant to a larger story—and no one can deny that’s the case here—and that’s a position with which many now agree.

So, if this is true, it’s certainly relevant for the media to confirm it and report on it, as Johnson is part of a movement doing enormous damage to the LGBTQ community and is a powerful player who helped elect a president who is promoting vile hatred against queer people.

Of course, there’s nothing wrong with being gay or bisexual. So it’s absolutely appropriate for a reporter to ask Johnson about it as well. Hopefully, a responsible journalist will do that.