I’m not sure why ABC News, summarizing two very straightforward reports published Friday, decided a question mark was necessary in its headline: Michele Bachmann Clinic: Where You Can Pray Away the Gay? The coverage from Friday, by Truth Wins Out (TWO) and The Nation, was quite clear that the answer to that question is “We’ll Certainly Try!”
ABC told of Andrew Ramirez, whose story was first featured Friday in The Nation:
A former patient who sought help from the Christian counseling clinic owned by GOP presidential hopeful Michele Bachmann and her husband, Marcus, told ABC News he was advised that prayer could rid him of his homosexual urges and he could eventually be “re-oriented.”
“[One counselor's] path for my therapy would be to read the Bible, pray to God that I would no longer be gay,” said Andrew Ramirez, who was 17-years-old at the time he sought help from Bachmann & Associates in suburban Minneapolis in 2004. “And God would forgive me if I were straight.”
Also discussed was the undercover hidden-camera investigation by TWO’s John Becker:
Questions about the clinic’s approach to counseling gay patients prompted the Vermont-based advocacy group Truth Wins Out to send a gay man undercover, with a camera, to seek guidance from a Bachmann associate.
“I told my therapist that I was struggling with attraction to the same sex, and that my attractions were overwhelmingly, predominately, exclusively homosexual,” said John Becker, the man who visited the clinic five times in late June.
Treatment notes and bills that Becker provided to ABC said the counselor’s goal was to “increase ability to manage and decrease feelings and actions.”
Becker said he was told more explicitly that the goal of his treatment was to end his homosexual urges entirely, and he was provided scriptural mantras to repeat to himself in order to stay on track.
“He seemed to believe genuinely in his heart of hearts that, somehow, my homosexuality could be cured and could be eliminated,” Becker said.
Tonight, ABC Nightline will cover this story. (Check your local listings). It’s great news to see this bust into Traditional Media outlets, because this reparative therapy is extremely damaging and fruitless. It hurts kids and tears apart families.



22 Comments

Goody! Can’t wait to see them take apart Marcus’ questionable credentials. George Rekers, he of the lifted luggage and the ruined lives, actually has a stronger professional background.
Diane Sawyer led the Nightly News program with this story, although I thought it was going to be on Nightline. Kind of brave for ABC actually, because they got badly burned with their own hidden cameras during their Food Lion investigation.
It’s about time that someone started exposing these bigots. Thanks, Teddy.
By the way, the artist who did the rendition of Marcus that graces the promoted versions of this piece is Ken Avidor, and he has more on the guy here: http://bachmanncards.blogspot.com/2010/09/3-fabulous-marcus-bachmann.html
At some point in time we’ll have to discuss deportation of these faux “Christains”. Seriously, if they deported “Reds” early in the 20th Century perhaps it’s time to think about deporting these ignorant and hateful people who are a cancer on the economic, social and spiritual life of the nation.
The Rove/Wall Street Republicans have got the long knives out for the Teabaggers. They are on the attack. They do not want Palin. They do not want Bachmann. The Networks cooperate because they are owned by the Wall Street Republicans. Diane Sawyer is a Useful Tool as always.
Aloha, Teddy…!
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Got signed up for October 2011 protest today.
Just got a cheap deal on a new 90L backpack for the trip, too
Good for you. My heart will be there.
I need to make a practice of ALWAYS leaving these links to debunk the “choice myth.”
AMA – http://www.ama-assn.org/ama/pub/about-ama/our-people/member-groups-sections/glbt-advisory-committee/ama-policy-regarding-sexual-orientation.page
American Psychiatric Association: http://www.psych.org/Departments/EDU/Library/APAOfficialDocumentsandRelated/PositionStatements/200001.aspx
Thanks Teddy. That’s the thing… this goes way beyond politics. It hurts kids and tears families apart. Prayer. Therapy. Counseling. What the fuck is so hard about acceptance?
The question mark Teddy, represents the groundwork that will ultimately call into question the ugly and salacious rumor, started by gay, Muslim, Liberals. In six weeks, conventional wisdom will be that reports that Marcus, (call me Marcia), Bachmann ran a for profit facility that engaged in pseudoscience and the worst kind of fundie tripe against young gay people was an unfounded rumor started out of malice and desperation.
Michele Bachmann Exposes 23 Minors to Possible Pedophile?
Let me state at the outset that everything you will read after this sentence is based on logic, but only as logic applies to someone with Michele Bachmann’s belief system; if Bachmann really believes what she claims to believe, then her conduct in exposing 23 minors to whatever risks her home might have posed to those minors raises many uncomfortable questions …
Article:
http://beeryblog.wordpress.com/2011/07/03/michele-bachmann-exposes-23-minors-to-possible-pedophile/
The Bachmanns indict themselves.
“Christian counseling” belongs on the list of leading American oxymorons. Right behind “common courtesy.”
Lets give em all a dollar and send em to Israel.
I’d like to be a Christian counselor. By the time I was done with those Christians, that term would no longer apply to them.
If “gay reparation therapy” counts as counseling, then certainly feeding fundies to the lions can as well.
It would make more sense to bring the families in for therapy and counseling. It’s a long journey for a bigot to get to acceptance.
LMAO! Too true! And much more likely to cure them of bigotry than praying is of “curing” teh gay.
Michele and Marcus could learn a lesson from this kid — kid meets gay couple, puzzles it out and figures, well….that means you love each other. Goes to play ping pong…acceptance. Done.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SbBtNVFjeDA
I love the ping pong kid.
Christianity seems to be in vogue these days, even Charlie Rangel is spouting “What would Jesus do?”