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Mike Johnson and Daughter Were Profiled at ‘Purity Ball’

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“Years before Mike Johnson would ascend to No. 2 in the presidential line of succession, a German TV news outlet profiled the future speaker of the House and his then-teenage daughter,” ABC News reports.

Said the news reporter: “This looks like a wedding… But they are not bride and groom — but rather father and… daughter.”

“The German news segment documented Johnson and his family preparing for and then attending a purity ball, a controversial formal dance event, popular among some conservative Christians, that gained notoriety in the early 2000s. At a typical event, fathers and their teenage daughters dress in formal ball attire for a night that involves dinner and dancing and culminates with the daughter signing a pledge to her father to abstain from dating and to remain sexually abstinent until marriage.”

“The news segment examines purity balls and the general purity movement among conservative Christians through the lens of the Johnson family.”

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About Political Wire

goddard-bw-snapshotTaegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map and the Political Dictionary.

Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.

Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.

Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.

Goddard is the owner of Goddard Media LLC.

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