'God Has Created You For Heterosexuality': Clinics Owned By Michele Bachmann's Husband Practice Ex-Gay Therapy

The Nation:

In the summer of 2004, Andrew Ramirez, who was just about to enter his senior year of high school, worked up the nerve to tell his family he was gay. His mother took the news in stride, but his stepfather, a conservative Christian, was outraged. "He said it was wrong, an abomination, that it was something he would not tolerate in his house," Ramirez recalls. A few weeks later, his parents marched him into the office of Bachmann & Associates, a Christian counseling center in Lake Elmo, Minnesota, which is owned by Michele Bachmann's husband, Marcus. From the outset, Ramirez says, his therapist--one of roughly twenty employed at the Lake Elmo clinic--made it clear that renouncing his sexual orientation was the only moral choice. "He basically said being gay was not an acceptable lifestyle in God's eyes," Ramirez recalls. According to Ramirez, his therapist then set about trying to "cure" him. Among other things, he urged Ramirez to pray and read the Bible, particularly verses that cast homosexuality as an abomination, and referred him to a local church for people who had given up the "gay lifestyle." He even offered to set Ramirez up with an ex-lesbian mentor.

Read the whole story: The Nation

Comments

[Reiner-von-Sinn]

10:44 PM on 07/14/2011

Well the therapy worked for Marcus

[Samwise636]

01:06 AM on 07/12/2011

Lest we forget, the American Psychiatric Association classified homosexuality as a mental disorder as recently as the 1970's. Some of the most prominent minds in psychology accepted this idea. Freud referred to homosexuality as an "inversion" that was "produced by a certain arrest of sexual development." Carl Jung viewed homosexuality as psychologically “immature” or “infantile.” Not to mention the fact that it is antithetical to the major tenets of Darwinism.

So lets not pretend that this is a new concept concocted by right-wing Christian fanatics. And lets not use political correctness to bludgeon people into silence about their beliefs. If nothing else, the Bachmanns are being consistent with their Christian beliefs, since the Bible is quite clear about the subject.

One more thing: it's fashionable to openly speculate that certain people are just "pretending" to be straight, when we "know" that they are really gay. Why is that only allowed to work one way?

[Razzer]

12:10 AM on 07/14/2011

Lest we forget: mental institutions were lobotomizing gays as recently as the 1950s.

So let's not pretend that brutal, violent, and outrageous treatments for what amounts to a human trait, still get promoted by people who ought to be evolving past primal fear of differences in others.

[JohnBryansFontaine]

10:19 AM on 07/11/2011

Marcus Bachmann’s Gay ‘Cure’
A hidden-camera exposé proved that Michele Bachmann’s husband practices a controversial therapy aimed at turning gays straight. Michelle Goldberg on the fallout for 2012.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/07/10/marcus-bachmann-s-controversial-gay-therapy-and-how-it-affects-michele-s-campaign.html

[DigDugDog]

09:42 PM on 07/10/2011

The religious right should realize that they can't win. After all, according to them, turning a gay person straight requires tons of prayer and conversion therapy at one of Marcus Bachmann's clinics, but turning a straight person gay only requires a brief glance at Heather Has Two Mommies.

[ifihadlegs]

09:57 PM on 07/10/2011

What a terrific comment. F&F

[TeamSanity]

02:19 AM on 07/11/2011

Exactly. I've been around gay people all my life, yet somehow I turned out straight!

[TheSojourner]

03:25 PM on 07/10/2011

I have absolutely nothing against gays. I'm an avid supporter of GLBT rights. The gays I've known have all been wonderful people. However, when there's someone who's so obviously gay (not effeminate, there's a big difference), and is pretending to be straight; that's being a hypocrite.Then he's working with gays to make them ex-gays; that's criminal! It doesn't matter if they had five children. Gays have sperm too!

[redsongia]

11:03 PM on 07/12/2011

He's clearly as gay as a parade. Every straight guy I know with even one kid never stops b1tching about how he's never getting any. 22 foster kids? Everytime Marcus talks about supressing gay urges he says "WE" need to supress these urges, not "THEY" need to or "YOU" need to. And did you see him dance with his wife? Get the F Out Marcus! And by "out" I mean really, "out."

[Vic22]

03:09 PM on 07/10/2011

I'm not saying you can't be gay and vote republican, you just can't be gay and vote for the republican party as it stands today

[Justice1]

10:49 AM on 07/10/2011

thinking that it is okay to be straight or is it not/?? you would think that phobia of heteros and their potential knowledge to help others with issues of sexuality would be welcome not discouraged...If people want to change they can change lifestyles sometimes they need alittle encouragement...not, discouragement and condoning immorality...

immorality leads to hatered which leads to other crimes beyond the normal relm of justice

[joemondo]

11:01 AM on 07/10/2011

Science says "ex gay therapy" is harmful and ineffective.

[redsongia]

11:05 PM on 07/12/2011

It's kind of weird that it's only when "converting" gay people, who have no interest in the sex they're peddling, these christian extremist groups for once encourage sexual thoughts. If it were a straight 17 year old boy in the room, would they ever even say the phrase "woman's body" in the same breath as "desire"?

[Zeke Hernandez]

10:06 AM on 07/10/2011

How Michele Bachmann is even a viable candidate is beyond me. Anyone who has so much hate in her heart should not be any elected official, never mind a possible president.

[redsongia]

11:06 PM on 07/12/2011

She's only viable in Iowa and S. Carolina.

[heckmepitus]

08:25 AM on 07/10/2011

‘God Has Created You For Heterosexuality' is an opinion and those holding this opinion have the right to express it.

[joemondo]

09:13 AM on 07/10/2011

If you're into stating the obvious, don't forget:

And everyone else has the right to criticize and correct that opinion.

[heckmepitus]

09:43 AM on 07/10/2011

Without question, but it is wrong to demonize people for having differing opinions.

[Razzer]

04:06 PM on 07/10/2011

God must love gay people. That is why He made so many of them.

[redsongia]

11:13 PM on 07/12/2011

...and made them so fabulous :)

[X-JerseyGuy]

01:10 AM on 07/10/2011

I know dragqueens that are not as feminine as this guy!
He's a BIG OLD GIRL!

[OutToLunch]

01:23 PM on 07/10/2011

Marcus would pull your hair and slap you silly for saying that...

[Steve Lives]

12:17 AM on 07/10/2011

LOL you got to be kidding me! I love American politics! LOL Vote that numbskull into office and you will be the Christian version of Iran faster than you can say it. That god nonsense needs to go away.

[joemondo]

11:54 PM on 07/09/2011

It's funny that the Christianists say gays are out to *convert* straight people, but really they're the only ones trying to convert anyone.

[InedaName]

10:37 PM on 07/09/2011

A gay activist underwent five therapy sessions at Bachmann's clinic with a hidden camera:

http://www.advocate.com/Politics/Commentary/In_His_Own_Words__How_I_Went_Undercover_at_Bachmann_s_Clinic/

[Justice1]

10:37 AM on 07/10/2011

has no merit or meaning...if he went there for help and really was needing a change he would have found it...

seek and ye shall find...

[joemondo]

11:02 AM on 07/10/2011

Incorrect.

Not a single "ex gay therapy" provider has ever been able to scientifically prove that they are effective. They are a scam.

[TBJ]

03:46 PM on 07/10/2011

Prove it.

[Nate35]

09:34 PM on 07/09/2011

The entire idea that sexual preference is somehow a choice is absurd on its face. We never question the involuntary nature of every other personal preference, but somehow some people find it something other than ludicrous to suggest that you can choose which gender you are attracted to.

The bottom line is, however, that ethically it does not matter whether homosexuality is a choice or not. We do not judge the moral standing of a person's dispositions based on whether they chose them or not, but whether they are harmful.

[Justice1]

10:39 AM on 07/10/2011

seems to me heterophobia is showing its horns here...there is hope for those who wish to change...

[joemondo]

10:48 AM on 07/10/2011

There is zero evidence that such change is possible, but much evidence that such "therapy" is harmful.

This is voodoo, not science.

[Nate35]

11:38 AM on 07/10/2011

I am bigoted against my own sexual preference? You're confusing me with an evangelical minister, or perhaps a Republican Senator.

[redsongia]

11:11 PM on 07/12/2011

To me, it's as weird as trying to convince a straight guy who likes big girls to date a skinny one, or vice versa. The whole prospect is weird, and trying to teach "heterosexuality" only underscores that there isn't even a correct way to prescribe being heterosexual and the whole fact of love and attraction is a mystery to be respected.

[Captimprobable]

09:21 PM on 07/09/2011

"I knew you before you were in the womb."

So we're left with three thoughts.

1. The second you enter the womb, God withdrawals any and all omnipotent protections and leaves you to Satan's influence and manipulation, condemning you to potential abominable, unforgivable sin before the first breath is even taken.

2. The second you leave the womb, God decides it would be a hoot to watch a one minute old infant do a battle of wills with a 1000's of years old demi God who can make it so you spend the rest of your life fighting the abominable identity they assign you through losing a battle of wills, that is second only to renouncing God Almighty...an identity that will NEVER go away, but can only be suppressed until the day you die. How...loving.

3. God made you homosexual and man took it upon himself to reinterpret God's will more to his bigoted nature.

[Justice1]

10:43 AM on 07/10/2011

what a great explanation of God's intended ideals...it surely is an abominable task one takes on...it is not like there are other alternatives...