Bachmann Overdrive

By now, you've all heard that Michele Bachmann is not seeking re-election.

I'm going to miss her.  After all, it's an accomplishment to make Sarah Palin look sane--and, at times, relatively coherent.  I mean, it's not just anyone about whom we can say that her insistence that gays can be "cured" is one of the least kooky things she says.

Plus, as you might know, her husband is a "Christian therapist" who runs an "ex-gay" clinic.  I'm sure he can tide her over until she transitions into the next phase of her life.  She might be getting a little old to work on Faux News (Rupert Murdoch interprets "child labor laws" to mean that no one over the emotional age of eleven should be hired.) but there may be a future for her with Glenn Beck, if he ever gets his own satellite network.  Or maybe she can be a regular guest on the Springer show. 

Anyway, I came across an interesting survey about ex-gay clinics from an author who spent time in one.  When Jallen Rix, who is also a facilitator at Beyond Ex-Gay, asked alumni of ex-gay "clinics" what good, if any, came of their experienced, 50 percent said "none".  Others said it helped them "come fully out of the closet", "feel less alone", leave religion or meet a same-sex partner.

In other words, for many alumni, their experiences of ex-gay "therapy", or whatever its practitioners call it, had affected them in ways that were exactly the opposite of what was intended.  

Moreover, about three-quarters of all participants said they quit the ex-gay movement didn't make them straight.  Twenty percent said they quit because of a nervous breakdown.  

And nearly all of them said, in different words, what one respondent wrote:  "I saw that NOBODY was being changed, and some of those guys had a lot more faith than I did," he wrote.  "The only ones I ever met who claimed to have been changed were the leadership.  And one of them was always hitting on me."

Nearly all of the respondents said that they were still paying for the experiences in more than one way.  "The financial cost of the ex-gay ministry  is not what I paid during the experience (which was nothing)," one wrote, "'but the thousands of dollars I have spent for therapy to get over the experience."

Hmm..Is that the legacy Ms. or Mr. Bachmann, who purport to be Christians--and to be pro-family--want to leave?  Perhaps they don't see the irony in it.  At least, she doesn't.  After all, she says things like "The founding fathers wouldn't recognize America today."  Indeed they wouldn't:  The fact that she was in Congress would surprise them in more ways than one!

South Carolina Yesterday; Ecuador Tomorrow?

Media pundits have parsed Newt Gingrich's primary victory in South Carolina last night in a number of ways.  Some think it's an indication that the battle for the Republican nomination will be very close; after all, there has been one other primary and one caucus, each of which produced a different winner.  Others say South Carolina is a bellwether:  Every candidate who's won its primary since 1980 has gone on to win the nomination.  Then there are those pundits who think South Carolina is too different from other states that have had, and will have, primaries, to serve as a harbinger of what's to come.


But nearly all of the commentators seem to agree that Evangelical Christians played a large part in Gingrich's victory.  While a larger percentage of the population identifies itself as Evangelical in South Carolina than in any other state, it's hard to deny the influence they will have in upcoming primaries, and the general election.


That can have dire consequences for LGBT people.  Sure, Michele Bachmann may be out of the race, but her husband's "therapeutic" practice--which, among other things, purports to "cure" homosexuality--is still thriving.  He was her main campaign adviser; now that she's out of the race, I wouldn't be surprised if he were giving support to Gingrich or Rick Santorum, who has also denounced homosexuality in religious terms.


Some of my friends and colleagues--who work some of the "bluest" occupations  in one of the "bluest" states-- don't understand just how many people in other places hold similar beliefs and were sorry to see Bachmann leave the race but are willing to vote for people like Gingrich and Santorum.  Of course, I don't think they can elect a President all by themselves.  But they are vocal about what they believe, and they vote.


So what would happen if this country were run by people who operate or support "ex-gay" clinics or camps?  Well, this might seem extreme to some of you, but we could end up like Ecuador, where hundreds of such clinics exist. According to the testimony of people who've experienced them, the physical and psychological torture of women is endemic to those places.  According to Karen Barba, the Director of Fundation Causana, those who operating the centers are "not only getting away with obscene human rights abuses, they are profiting off them."


So those clinics come from an unholy alliance of bigotry married to greed, which is then covered with a veneer of religiosity.  Hmm...that sounds familiar.  I think we've seen it at work in this country's election cycle, and there's more to come.