I know a lot of us aren’t that political, and many haven’t been paying much attention to the Republicans clawing all over each other for the presidential nomination next year, but if you have a Twitter account or read the news you have probably heard of Michele Bachmann, the congresswoman from Minnesota who is quickly floating to the top of the short list of GOP bigots likely to face Barack Obama at the ballot box next year.
You know Bachmann—she’s the one who married her queeny husband Marcus (who runs a clinic that offers “ex-gay” therapy for self-hating homos) after both of them experienced a vision from God. Well, despite the fact that she is a religious extremist with virtually no record of accomplishments in congress besides forwarding her hateful moral agenda, she won the Iowa Straw Poll over the weekend, one of the first real litmus tests to determine who is a “top tier” candidate for the 2010 election.
Here’s the thing about Michele Bachmann: she is not Sarah Palin. She is smarter, she’s more highly regarded, she has a more drive and she has none of Palin’s political baggage. She’s also about twice as [scary].
Want to know just how Bachmann feels about you? Here’s what she said in 2004 re: the gays:
“It’s a very sad life. It’s part of Satan, I think, to say that this is ‘gay.’ It’s anything but ‘gay.’ It leads to the personal enslavement of individuals. Because if you’re involved in the gay and lesbian lifestyle, it’s bondage. It is personal bondage, personal despair, and personal enslavement. And that’s why this is so dangerous. We need to have profound compassion for people who are dealing with the very real issue of sexual dysfunction in their life, and sexual identity disorders.”
Bachmann was faced with this gem as recently as this past weekend, when she appeared onMeet the Press after her Iowa victory, and she stood by it, adding stupidly, “I am not anyone’s judge.” In it, she displays her profound ignorance (or worse, her straight up denial of facts) by calling homosexuality a “dysfunction” and a “disorder”, despite the fact that the American Psychiatric Association declassified homosexuality as a disorder in 1973, with the American Psychological Association following suit a few years later.
We need to face a scary reality, guys. Barack Obama’s approval ratings have dropped below 40 percent, the lowest they have ever been. Meanwhile, Michelle Bachmann, even with her long history of documented bigotry, is well on her way to securing the nomination (with only Texas governor Rick Perry posing much of a threat now, and he’s about as bad as she is). Remember what happened in 2010, when the GOP took back the senate and the house? We need to face the real possibility that Michele Bachmann could be the next president.
She supports a federal ban on gay marriage. She has vowed to reinstate Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. She opposes ENDA, which would defend you from discrimination in the workplace. She thinks the love you share with your partner is Satanic, dysfunctional and sad. Under President Bachmann, you can expect the momentum toward full civil rights we have achieved over the past few years (with little thanks to President Obama, it’s true) to be rolled back. You’d see full Republican control of government, and the introduction and passage of who knows what kind of hateful legislation aimed and subjugating LGBT people even further.
You need to pay attention to Michele Bachmann in the coming months, as she calculates her way to the presidency. And you need to be terrified.
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