Under Cover Investigation Confirms Marcus Bachmann's Clinics Practice Ex-Gay Therapy

I'm sorry if of late I seem obsessed with Michele Bachmann and her lisping and mincing husband, but the two nut cases just keep doing things that make it hard to ignore their lunacy - especially given their vitriolic statements against LGBT citizens. Now, as The Nation is reporting, Truth Win's Out did an under cover investigation and has confirmed that Marcus Bachmann's "Christian counseling" clinics engage in reparative therapy - yep, the therapy that the American Psychological Association has declared to be unethical because it doesn't work and can do serious harm to patients who find themselves unable to "change." Like most of the quacks that practice this snake oil therapy, it appears Bachmann and his clinics are NOT licensed even though Minnesota law requires licensing for psychologists - which is what Bachmann holds himself out to be - family therapists, and counselors. One has to wonder what loop whole this disingenuous operation is using to avoid the state licensing requirements. And, of course, those who are so stridently anti-gay usually are the self-loathing closet cases. The obvious question is: can the country afford to have anyone who subscribes to such crazy, discredited bullshit in high office? Here are highlights from the story in The Nation:
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In the summer of 2004, Andrew Ramirez, who was just about to enter his senior year of high school, worked up the nerve to tell his family he was gay. His mother took the news in stride, but his stepfather, a conservative Christian, was outraged. “He said it was wrong, an abomination, that it was something he would not tolerate in his house,” Ramirez recalls. A few weeks later, his parents marched him into the office of Bachmann & Associates, a Christian counseling center in Lake Elmo, Minnesota, which is owned by Michele Bachmann’s husband, Marcus. From the outset, Ramirez says, his therapist—one of roughly twenty employed at the Lake Elmo clinic—made it clear that renouncing his sexual orientation was the only moral choice. “He basically said being gay was not an acceptable lifestyle in God’s eyes,” Ramirez recalls. According to Ramirez, his therapist then set about trying to “cure” him. Among other things, he urged Ramirez to pray and read the Bible, particularly verses that cast homosexuality as an abomination, and referred him to a local church for people who had given up the “gay lifestyle.” He even offered to set Ramirez up with an ex-lesbian mentor.
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There has been a great deal of speculation that his [Marcus Bachmann] clinics, which have received $161,000 in state and federal funding, try to cure homosexuality—and the chatter has only grown louder since his comments likening gays to “barbarians” who “need to be educated” and “disciplined” surfaced in the blogosphere last week. Marcus Bachmann has denied these allegations. “That’s a false statement,” he replied when the Minneapolis City Pages asked if his clinic tried to cure gays. And until now there was no firm evidence to back these allegations up. But information obtained by The Nation suggests that Bachmann & Associates therapists do, in fact, try to change sexual orientation. It also sheds new light on the Bachmanns’ embrace of the controversial ex-gay movement and related psychological approaches, which portray homosexuality as a disease to be rooted out.
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In late June, a Truth Wins Out activist named John Becker donned two hidden cameras—one embedded in a wristwatch—and attended five treatment sessions at Bachmann’s Lake Elmo clinic. Becker, who is openly gay, presented himself as a committed Christian who was struggling with homosexuality. The video he collected seems to confirm Ramirez’s allegations that staff members at Bachmann & Associates try to change sexual orientation. Becker’s therapist (another of Marcus Bachmann’s employees) repeatedly assured him that homosexuality could be overcome. “
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To curb Becker’s gay impulses, the therapist urged him to pray and read Scripture and suggested Becker “develop” his masculinity. He also encouraged him to find a “heterosexual guy” to act as act as an AA-type sponsor. Later, he referred Becker to Outpost Ministries, a church that helps “the sexually and relationally broken”—in other words, homosexuals—“find healing and restoration through relationship with Jesus Christ.”
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Both Bachmann & Associates and the Bachmann campaign declined to comment for this story, though in the past Marcus Bachmann has insisted his clinics don’t push people to change their sexual orientation. “If someone comes in a homosexual and they want to stay a homosexual, I don’t have a problem with that,” he told the Minneapolis City Pages. Nevertheless, the techniques the therapist at his Lake Elmo clinic used were typical of so-called reparative therapies, which cast homosexuality as a mental disorder and see conversion to heterosexuality as the only healthy outcome.
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[T]he [APA] group concluded that there was scant evidence that sexual orientation could be changed. What’s more, it found that attempting to do so could cause depression and suicidal tendencies among patients. Based on these findings, in 2009 the APA voted to repudiate reparative therapy by a margin of 125 to 4.
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The obvious conclusions - beside the fact that BOTH Bachmann's are crazy - are (1)that Marcus Bachmann is a liar when it comes to telling the truth about his ex-gay therapy practices, and (2) state licensing requirements need to be imposed on quack operations like Bachmann's clinics to protect the public.