Anti-Gay Marriage Politician Donated Sperm to Lesbians

In his failed quest to become governor of Alabama, Bill Johnson campaigned against gay marriage in 2009—but he has been secretly donating sperm to lesbian couples in New Zealand since. Johnson headed to the country this year to aid in earthquake recovery; it was his desire to father children that drove him to donate without telling his wife, who has three kids from a previous relationship and had a hysterectomy in advance of their 2004 wedding. Or so he told the New Zealand Herald, which found that Johnson has discussed donating sperm with at least nine women, three of whom have become pregnant. The urge to procreate is "a need that I have," he told the paper.

Fertility experts don't recommend donating to more than four families, to cut chances of accidental incest. When the Herald approached Johnson on Thursday in a restaurant where he was dining with one of the women he had impregnated, he said there was "nothing my wife would want to give me more in the world than a child of my own"—though he admitted he hadn't planned to tell wife Kathy about his extracurricular activity until after the children were born. "I'm still in disbelief and very hurt, and our family has a lot of healing to do," she tells Alabama Live. (More sperm donors stories.)