Bachmann Under Fire for 'Pray Away the Gay' Clinic

ANALYSIS | As Rep. Michele Bachmann rides high in the polls in the nation's first primary and caucus state, she has drawn the attention of the nation toward her beliefs and her husband's faith-based counseling service. She and her husband, Marcus, run a clinic in Minnesota that was featured on ABC's "Nightline" Monday night. In a hidden camera segment, "Nightline" broadcast a counselor at the Bachmann & Associates facility advocating what has become known as reparative therapy, something that Marcus Bachmann has stated in the past was not part of the clinic's various therapeutic schedules.

Although asked and prompted by the media, Bachmann has refused to talk about it.

But future presidential candidate Michele Bachmann has had no trouble talking about it publicly in the past, such as during the first Republican presidential debate in New Hampshire in early June. She told an Illinois ABC affiliate news station that she was "proud" of the work done at their family-owned clinic.

Truth Wins Out, an organization formed to combat the distortion of gay-related research, filmed a counselor telling an undercover client that he could convert from a homosexual to a heterosexual via prayer. Colloquially, the idea is known as "praying the gay away," and is a pillar of reparative therapy, which is just another name for conversion or reorientation therapy, methods of dealing with gay issues that have been opposed by the American Psychological Association.

Andrew Ramirez, who was 17 at the time he sought help at the Bachmann clinic, told "Nightline" that he would 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," Ramirez said of his 2004 counseling. "And God would forgive me if I were straight."

Ramirez' account, which was first reported by The Nation last week, corroborated the more recent video taken from within the clinic by a Truth Win Out staffer.

In one portion of the video, the counselor told the staffer that "God has designed our eyes (for you) to be attracted to (a) woman's body."

The Bachmanns have issued a joint statement concerning release of information about the clinic: "Those matters are protected by patient-client confidentiality. The Bachmann's [sic] are in no position ethically, legally, or morally to discuss specific courses of treatment concerning the clinic's patients."

Bachmann's anti-gay stance is well known. She recently signed a pledge designed by a conservative Iowa group that called for presidential candidates to support a Constitutional amendment that defined marriage as a heterosexual union. Besides gay rights activists protests, the pledge soon came under fire from freedom of speech advocates (the document also insinuated that pornography be banned), and civil rights groups that noted a statement that stated African American children born in the Obama administration were less likely to have a two-parent household enjoyed by slaves (removed after the protests erupted).

At an Right Online convention in mid-June, a gay rights activist threw glitter (part of an awareness effort) at the presidential candidate as she exited the stage.

Reparative or conversion therapy has been touted by the evangelical community for some time, even though the American Psychiatric Association opposes it as a therapy. In a scathing 2009 rebuttal article against the conversion therapy-espousing "Love Won Out" program of Focus on Family, Wayne Besen, founder or Truth Wins Out, asserted: "Most gay people -- just like heterosexuals -- instinctively know their sexual orientation is natural and there was no "choice" in the matter." He added that scientific studies, regardless of statements to the contrary by such faith-based groups employ "pray away the gay" methods, pointed to a biological or genetic factor in gay sexual orientation.

As the "pray away the gay" controversy lingers, the increased scrutiny on the Bachmann family's business could negatively affect the Minnesota Congresswoman's presidential campaign. And history indicates that the media, once attracted by the scent of scandal or controversy, is not easily diverted -- by prayer or anything else.