Michele Bachmann, gay-curing theocrat

Michele Bachmann, gay-curing theocrat
The surprisingly "serious" presidential candidate is even more extreme than she appears

Michelle Goldberg's Daily Beast/Newsweek piece on Michele Bachmann's history and faith -- a strain of born-againism associated with crackpot history, opposition to science, and virulent intolerance of gays and lesbians -- shows precisely how out-there Bachmann is, even though the congresswoman these days pretends to be run-of-the-mill hard-right-winger. (Yes, her current extremism represents a moderation of her former incarnation.)

The piece begins with a wonderful recounting of the time she accused lesbians of kidnapping her and holding her hostage in a bathroom, because some ladies were talking to her. Minnesotans may know much of this already, but people familiar with Bachmann only from liberal blogs or cable news are missing the evangelical extremism that informs her every public statement. She talks like Ron Paul now, but she's Pat Robertson at heart. Her spiritual influences and advisors explicitly advocate theocracy and are obviously responsible for her garbled and twisted impression of American history.

A couple of newsy bits: Her 23 foster kids, a topic she mentions all the time? She doesn't ever go into detail about how many she has or had at any time, or for how long she fostered them:

Bachmann often says she has "raised" 23 foster children. That may be a bit of a stretch. According to the Minnesota Department of Human Services, Bachmann's license, which she had for 7 1/2 years, allowed her to care for up to three children at a time. According to Kris Harvieux, a former senior social worker in the foster-care system in Bachmann's county, some placements were almost certainly short term. "Some of them you have for a week. Some of them you have for three years, some you have for six months," says Harvieux, who also served as a foster parent herself. "She makes it sound like she got them at birth and raised them to adulthood, but that's not true."

(However many she has at a time, foster kids are a good way to make some tax-free cash from the Minnesota government, and they're not even Bachmann's sole source of free government cash.)

It's likely that her husband's clinic is at least in part dedicated to "curing" gay people:

Both she and her husband, by all accounts her most trusted political adviser, believe that homosexuality can be cured. Speaking to a Christian radio station about gay teenagers last year, Marcus, who treats gay people in his counseling practice, said, "Barbarians need to be educated. They need to be disciplined, and just because someone feels this or thinks this, doesn't mean that we're supposed to go down that road."

This is the beyond-the-pale stuff that makes Bachmann so, so much worse than Sarah Palin, to whom she is regularly compared.

Bachmann has also lied about her own family's support for her anti-gay activism. Members of her extended family have written letters to Minnesota papers criticizing her, without identifying themselves as being related to her.

The Bachmann Backlash Begins
Jonathan S. Tobin 06.15.2011 - 2:54 PM

For months, Rep. Michele Bachmann has hovered on the margins of the consciousness of the mainstream media. But after her breakthrough appearance at Monday night’s New Hampshire Republican presidential debate, it was a given that she would start getting the same treatment that was accorded the last religious conservative woman to make it onto the national stage. As Michelle Goldberg’s hit piece in today’s Daily Beast illustrates, the effort to demonize Bachmann is in full swing and she can expect no more mercy from liberals than Sarah Palin got.

The highlight of Goldberg’s piece is undoubtedly her account of what happened when to supporters of gay marriage ambushed her in a rest room after a 2005 town hall meeting when Bachmann was a Minnesota state senator. The two, a lesbian and a nun, claim Bachmann screamed for help when the two buttonholed her in a lady’s room. Apparently we’re supposed to think Bachmann is a screwball for feeling threatened (if indeed, that’s what actually happened) when hostile strangers in a small space cornered her with no one else around.

Goldberg’s biggest problem is, of course, the fact that the religiously conservative Bachmann is a longtime opponent of gay marriage and she makes the most out of the fact that the congresswoman’s gay stepsister broke with her over the issue.

We can also expect to hear a great deal the influence of one of her law professors, John Eidsmoe who appears to something of a theocrat as well as advocating some erroneous and extreme ideas about both slavery and the Civil War.

The fact that she is an evangelical will be enough to incite liberals to blast her as an extremist especially Jewish liberals, who will not be impressed by the fact that Bachmann is not only a strong supporter of Israel but made her first trip there when she was a teenager with a Christian youth group.

While all this can be woven together into a narrative that makes Bachmann look like a nutcase, the problem with such efforts is that unlike Palin, after more than a decade as a legislator, the congresswoman can’t be dismissed as a political flash in the pan or an empty suit. She’s got a long paper trail of her own as well as an impressive education and work resume. As even her foes in Congress and in Minnesota politics have conceded, she’s sharp as a tack and a formidable foe.

Now that she’s had a chance to exhibit her talents on the national stage, her detractors are going to have to do more than mention the fact that she looked into the wrong camera during her response to President Obama’s State of the Union speech and committed a gaffe when she thought the Revolutionary War started in Concord, New Hampshire that than Concord, Massachusetts. Which means that slurs about her religious faith, her political beliefs and the usual snarky stuff that is used against female politicians (her looks, clothes, hair and makeup) will be trotted out. Goldberg’s piece is the first but it won’t be the last of this genre, especially if as now seems likely, her campaign gathers momentum.

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