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The Bachmanns’ unrelenting, obsessive homophobia garners national attention



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In my Washington Post today, I read an article about underreported anti-gay crimes here in DC:

Quincy Jones already knew he was gay, so when a group of street preachers hurled epithets at him one night last month outside the Columbia Heights Metro, he says, he shrugged it off.

Then, Jones says, it got uglier: “I’ll kill you where you stand,” one of the preachers shouted into a microphone. Shaken, Jones called 911 from a nearby sandwich shop.

But the officer who responded was unimpressed when asked to take an incident report, according to Jones, 32. “He was like, ‘For what? For calling you a name?’ ”
For calling him a name? How about for threatening to kill him? That's the message delivered by anti-gay religious leaders, whether with a bullhorn in Columbia Heights or from the pulpits on Sunday. They send a message that violence against gays is acceptable.

And, in another section of today's Washington Post, there's another article on two major purveyors of homophobia: Michele and Marcus Bachmann. Their exact message may not be a blatant as that preacher in Columbia Heights, but they send a similar signal.

That duo really hates the gays -- and have built their careers on gay-bashing. We wrote about Marcus Bachmann last week, when he said gays are "barbarians" who need education and discipline. And, Marcus made those comments last year. The couple and their homophobic ways have captured the attention of the traditional media. Jason Horowitz did the profile:
Michele Bachmann has called gay marriage “probably the biggest issue that will impact our state and our nation in the last, at least, 30 years.” In 2005, she ran screaming from a bathroom at a constituent forum, claiming that a lesbian had attempted to keep her there against her will. (The woman said she was merely questioning Bachmann about her position on gay marriage.) As a state senator, she was seen crouching behind hedges to observe a gay rights rally. (She has explained that she was checking the turnout.) Dr. Bachmann’s views on homosexuality have likewise earned him the ire of gay activists and liberal critics.

He is a major focal point of the Dump Bachmann blog, created by the former head of a local gay Republican group that has become the go-to archive for all things negative about the congresswoman. In 2006, City Pages, a Minneapolis alternative weekly, reported on a 2005 presentation that Dr. Bachmann delivered at the Grace Church in Eden Prairie titled “The Truth About the Homosexual Agenda,” during which he introduced three people as “former homosexuals” as proof that sexual orientation is a choice. That same article also reported that Bachmann & Associates, the Christian counseling center he runs, practiced “reparative therapy,” a method of converting homosexuals to heterosexuality often called “praying away the gay.”

Dr. Bachmann has called the report “false,” though, as he explained to City Pages: “If someone is interested in talking to us about their homosexuality, we are open to talking about that. But if someone comes in a homosexual and they want to stay homosexual, I don’t have a problem with that.”
Yeah, I don't really believe that last line. But, then again, I'm a barbarian.

So, preachers who will kill gays where we stand are bad enough. But, the Bachmanns, who have a much bigger bully pulpit, want to discipline the gay barbarians. And, people wonder how a 15 year old gay kid can be executed by another teenager.

UPDATE: Igor Volsky has more on Michele Bachmann's ties to the ex-gay group, Love Won Out. These rabid homophobes are dangerous. Seriously.

NOTE FROM JOHN: Some serious gay-hating from Bachmann in this video Matt Browner Hamlin posted over at AMERICAblog Elections.

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