Michele Bachman Tried to Pass Legislation Protecting "Ex-Gay" Therapists Like Her Husband

I continue to hope that the mainstream media will get off its collective ass and start focusing on the growing story over Marcus Bachmann's unlicensed and unethical clinics - as well as growing questions over exactly what credentials he actually holds. It's important because it speaks volumes about the would be first husband's spouse, Michele Bachmann. By her past actions she has tried to protect ex-gay therapists either to protect her husband's likely lucrative witch doctor like clinics or because she's a religious fanatic who rejects all legitimate scientific and medical knowledge on sexual orientation. Do we really want another president like the Chimperator who believed that he was on some religious crusade and rejected objective reality? I most certainly do not. First, Think Progress has an article that looks at Michele Bachmann's effort to pass legislation while in the Minnesota legislature that would have protected ex-gay snake oil merchants like her husband. Something that certainly suggests a conflict of interest on her part. Here are some highlights:
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The media attention on the harmful ex-gay therapy performed in Dr. Marcus Bachmann’s Christian counseling clinic shines new light on a law his wife tried to pass when she was in the Minnesota state Senate in 2006. The “Minnesota Expanded Health Care Practices Act for Licensed Health Care Professionals” (SF 2984) sought to create a legal right to “expanded health care,” defined as any treatment or approach “not generally considered to be within the prevailing minimum standards of care of a profession or that are not standard practices of a profession in a particular community.” It also would have established legal protections for any practitioners who offered such expanded health care.
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Bachmann proposed the bill in 2006, a year before the American Psychological Association began investigating ex-gay therapy, which they ultimately concluded was ineffective and harmful. She had previously endorsed “Love Won Out” in 2004, one of the many ministries under the Exodus International umbrella. Had the bill gotten more than just a reading, it would have used Minnesota law to protect Marcus Bachmann’s clinics and the credentials of his counselors from ever being challenged by patients who had negative results.
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So what are the societal costs arising from fraudulent "ex-gay" therapy? They are many, not the least of which is the damage done to families where one spouse is actually gay yet trying to be straight because of the message that "change" is possible. The marriages ultimately fail, families are splintered. In addition, anti-LGBT employment discrimination swells the ranks of the unemployed and under employed. And then there are the mental health care costs arising from being constantly denigrated as evil, deviant or a sinner. Think Progress has another article under its health page that looks at the other costs we as a society and the LGBT community in particular end up paying. Here are some highlights:
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[T]he [Bachmann & Associates] clinic may have billed the government’s Medicaid program for thousands of dollars in reimbursements for counseling services aimed at turning gay people straight.
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Subjecting gay people to pseudoscientific “therapy” (and billing Medicaid for it) does more than put Dr. Bachmann’s unlicensed clinic in the crosshairs of an investigation into both his psychotherapy credentials and his wife’s anti-government bonafides. Ex-gay therapy of the kind practiced by Bachmann & Associates isn’t just hypocritical and widely discredited as ineffective – it’s dangerous.
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The good doctor Bachmann isn’t alone in his professed belief that gay people are “barbarians” in need of discipline and punishment. This [anti-gay] attitude feeds pervasive discrimination against gay (and transgender) people and their families in employment, relationship recognition, health care, education, and housing. The constant stress of coping with this discrimination contributes to significant health issues for gay and transgender people, including higher rates of substance use, anxiety, depression, and suicide.
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Beliefs that gay people need to be “cured” of their sexual orientation also contribute to harassment and violence against gay people and anyone else who doesn’t conform to rigid stereotypes of gender and sexuality.
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Ex-gay therapy tears at the mental health of gay people while contributing to the poisonous attitudes that mark them as targets for violence and discrimination. And for this “therapy,” it’s society as a whole that foots the bill: every blow at the ability of gay people to take care of themselves and their families has its costs, whether in the loss of a job because of harassment, days missed at school because of bullying, or medical bills for dealing with depression or the aftermath of violence. And while we all pay, Dr. Bachmann profits.