Michele Bachmann

• Towleroad: Marcus Bachmann Defends Clinic's 'Ex-Gay' Therapy, Claims Tape on Which He Called Gays 'Barbarians' Was Doctored.
• Warren Throckmorton: Bryan Fischer’s expert misleads audience on ex-gay therapy.
• Charles Johnson @ LGF: Michele Bachmann's Prophetic Visions.
• Frances Martel @ Mediaite: New Republic: Clarence Thomas Leads The ‘Legal Arm Of The Tea Party.’
• Nick @ Bold Faith Type: Anderson Cooper on Walid Shoebat: Unmasking a Faux-Expert on Islam and Counter-terrorism.

Ever since the media started examining reports that the clinic operated by Michele Bachmann's husband Marcus practices "ex-gay therapy," the Religious Right has been in a tizzy and come rushing to their defense.

So it was no surprise to see Bryan Fischer doing his part, though in this case it was Dr. Tim Rampey (who, oddly, was promoted as the author of "America Fooled: The Truth About Antidepressants, Antipsychotics And How We've Been Deceived," though the book cover says it was written by "Dr. Timothy Scott") who reached out to Fischer and offered to come on to his program and defend the practice.

During the extended discussion, Rampey complained that the mental health profession was misleading the public into believing that gays and lesbians are born that way and there used to be all sorts of studies disproving that idea - like "Calvin's Rat Universe" - but those studies have been removed from all textbooks.  Rampey went on to claim that gay men were hated by their fathers and asserted that there is absolutely no evidence that efforts to change sexual orientation are harmful:

The Family Research Council has been adamantly defending the clinic founded by Rep. Michele Bachmann and her husband since an undercover investigation revealed that the clinic was practicing discredited ‘ex-gay’ reparative therapy. The Religious Right group, which recently urged people to pray for countries that criminalize homosexuality, wants members to pray for anti-gay laws and clinics that offer “help for homosexuals to break free from addiction to homosexuality.” The FRC writes in its latest prayer alert:

Christian Counseling under Assault – This week a homosexual activist group reported findings from their undercover “sting” operation at Minnesota Christian counseling clinic owned by Republican Presidential candidate Michelle Bachman and her husband, Marcus. Sympathetic national media seemed shocked that the Christian counseling center offered help for homosexuals to break free from addiction to homosexuality through faith in Jesus Christ. Where will the homosexual assault on religious liberty stop?

May God open the eyes of all Americans to the truth regarding natural marriage and sexuality vs. homosexuality as well as homosexual rights vs. religious liberty. May officials at every level stand up for natural marriage and sexuality. May the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) and state marriage amendments be upheld in the courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court. May our military men be protected from the introduction of homosexuality into their ranks. May we all stand up for our First Amendment freedoms! (Ps 82: all; Is 42:6-7; Mt 19:4; Rom 1:24-28; 1 Cor 6:9-11; 2 Tim 2:24-25)

• The New York Times profiles Mike Bickle and his International House of Prayer.
• Ralph Reed is supporting Gov. Rick Perry's "The Response" prayer rally.
• The Family Leader drops the crazy slavery language from its candidate pledge.
• The ACLJ's "Ground Zero Mosque" lawsuit has been tossed out of court.
• Glenn Beck is moving to Texas.  That sounds about right.
• Apparently conservatives just need to be more militant.
• Don't tell the Tea Party, but Michele Bachmann used to work for the IRS.

• Sarah Posner @ Religion Dispatches: The Real Story Behind Rick Perry’s Secret Meetings with Pastors.
• Andy Birkey @ Minnesota Independent: Is Bradlee Dean Michele Bachmann’s Rev. Wright?
• Ed Brayton @ Dispatches From The Culture War: Liberty Counsel, the ACLU and Attorney Fees.
• Steve Benen: Why Inhofe Is Mad At The FAA.
• Jodi Jacobson @ RH Reality Check: Brownback Nominates Operation Rescue Attorney to Kansas Board of Healing Arts.
• Good As You: Bachmann in '04: Senators who oppose marriage amendment like soldiers who missed Pearl Harbor warnings.
• Igor Volsky @ Think Progress LGBT: Iowa Group Asks Republican Candidates To Agree That Homosexuality Is A Choice, Pornography Should Be Banned.

In 2009, Janet Porter of Faith 2 Action organized a right-wing conference in St. Louis called "How To Take Back America" that was co-sponsored by the likes of WorldNetDaily, The American Family Association, Vision America, Liberty Counsel, and WallBuilders.  The keynote speakers at the conference were Mike Huckabee and Rep. Michele Bachmann.

The line-up at this conference was so radical that we put together a report on the participants which gave special attention to the truly fringe views espouse by Porter: 

It is probably impossible to overstate the extremism and lunacy of Janet Porter, whose radio program and Faith2Action.org website gives her a platform for promoting the most unhinged of conspiracy theories.

Porter is Mike Huckabee's biggest fan. She first fell in love when she organized the 2007 Values Voter Debate to which she had personally invited a gospel choir to sing "Why Should God Bless America?" and after which Porter (then Folger) declared that Huckabee had been revealed as the answer to Christians' prayers for a presidential candidate who shared their views, proclaiming him to be the "David among Jesse's sons." During the presidential primaries, she started a front group to attack Huckabee's arch nemesis Mitt Romney and wrote columns claiming that only Huckabee could prevent Hillary Clinton from throwing all Christians into prison and save her fantasy world from this "evil queen and her dragon of slaughter."

She has since claimed that God has cursed America for voting for Obama, that anyone who voted for him is bound for hell , and that anyone who has ever voted for a pro-choice candidate is also living under a curse. She has actively pushed the Birther conspiracies and even alleged that Obama's presidency was the culmination of a decade-long Communist conspiracy twenty years in the making. After the election, but before the inauguration, she called on God to prevent Obama from taking office, while warning that "AN EARTH-SHATTERING CALAMITY IS ABOUT TO HAPPEN" to this nation because we deserve God's judgment.

Among other fears she has recently been stoking: the Obama administration is creating internment camps for conservatives and building mass evacuation buses to take them there, while warning that the H1N1 flu vaccine is really a nefarious plot by the government to kill millions of Americans. She helped to create and inflate the Right's false claims that a Department of Homeland Security report was equating conservatives and veterans with terrorists; as noted above, she's now pushing comparisons between the Obama administration and the rise of Nazism.

Porter has written a book called "The Criminalization of Christianity" and claims that hate crimes legislation will lead to Christians being thrown in jail. More recently she's joined the chorus of extremists falsely claiming that the bill would "give heightened protection to pedophiles." As part of her campaign against hate crimes legislation, Porter has repeatedly invited on to her radio show Ted Pike, a rabid anti-Semite who claims hate crimes laws are part of a Jewish plot for world domination.

Of course, the radical views held by Porter and the others in no way dissuaded Bachmann from attending.  In fact, Bachmann appeared on Porter's radio program ahead of the event and used it as an opportunity to praiser her and endorse the May Day at the Lincoln Memorial prayer event Porter was planning for the following spring:

That May Day event ended up being so infused with Seven Mountains Dominion Theology that Porter lost her radio program and almost ended her career at a Religious Right activist, until she showed up in Ohio earlier this year where she began scheduling fetuses to "testify" on behalf of her extremist anti-choice "Heartbeat Bill."  In her downtime, she was busy praying for God to give Christians control over the media and every level of government.

But none of that seemed to bother Bachmann, who joined Porter, Joseph Farah, and others in promoting Porter's "Pink Slip" campaign to warn members of Congress that they would lose their jobs if they voted for legislation opposed by the Right:

In 2008, Porter was a key supporter of Mike Huckabee.  But with Huckabee declining to run for President this time around, Porter's endorsement is still up in the air. 

But given the already existing ties between Bachmann and Porter (and judging by the poll Porter is currently running on her website) it seems increasingly like that Bachmann could wind up being her candidate of choice.

• Warren Throckmorton: David Barton misleads Focus on the Family on death penalty case.
• Steve Benen: Bachmann weary of ‘our wicked ways.’
• Marie Diamond @ Think Progress: Bachmann Fails Economics 101: ‘A Dollar In 2011 Should Be The Same As A Dollar In 1911.′
• Tim Murphy @ Mother Jones: Michele Bachmann's Redistricting Whopper.
• Matt Finkelstein @ Political Correction: In Independence Day Prayer, Rep. Broun Compares Progressives To Terrorists Who "Want To Destroy Us."
• Digby: "It's A Personal Matter."

The Ohio State House finally voted on and passed Janet Porter’s “Heartbeat bill,” which would criminalize abortion in most cases. Conspicuously absent was a statement from the state’s leading anti-choice group, the Ohio Right to Life Society, which actually opposed the bill because it is blatantly unconstitutional. Now Porter’s prized legislation moves on to the Senate, and her group Faith2Action released a congratulatory statement:

“For every battle weary pro-lifer who didn't see how children were going to be protected in our lifetime, come see what God is doing in Ohio. Protection for babies with beating hearts is within reach for the first time since Roe stripped their rights away. I have never been more hopeful for restoring protection to babies with beating hearts than I am right now,” declared Janet (Folger) Porter, president of Ohio-based Faith2Action and a former legislative director for Ohio Right to Life.

In meetings with bill supporters, several of the state senators have expressed interest in serving as a sponsor or co-sponsor for the bill.

The bill was backed by a number of national Republican figures including presidential candidates Michele Bachmann and Newt Gingrich, and Porter even had two fetuses “testify” in favor of the bill.

Today Michele Bachmann refused to back down from her previous claim that the Founding Fathers, many of whom were slaveholders, actually opposed slavery. She cited John Quincy Adams, who was nine years old when the Declaration of Independence was signed, to prove her argument that the Founders worked to end slavery. But Bachmann’s belief that the Founding Fathers were actually abolitionists makes sense in the world of conservative alternative history created by David Barton.

Bachmann is a fan of Barton and even invited the pseudo-historian to address members of Congress in a lecture sponsored by her House Tea Party Caucus. Barton insists that Founders were not only devoted opponents of slavery, but actually fought the revolution against Britain to end it. Even though Britain abolished slavery two decades before the U.S., Barton insists that the War of Independence was really about America’s desire to end slavery against Britain’s wishes: