Bachmann: Gay Lifestyle Is 'Personal Despair'

Candidate bares view in speech
By Mary Papenfuss,  Newser Staff
Posted Jul 13, 2011 3:00 AM CDT
Updated Jul 13, 2011 6:00 AM CDT
Bachmann: Gay 'Part of Satan'
Michele Bachmann campaigns before a crowd of Iowa factory workers.   (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)

If anyone is still confused about where GOP presidential candidate Michele Bachmann stands on gays, Gawker has discovered a quote that should settle the matter. "We need to have profound compassion for the people who are dealing with the very real issue of sexual dysfunction in their life, and sexual identity disorders," Bachmann said in a 2004 speech. "It's not funny, it's sad. It's part of Satan, I think, to say this is gay. It's anything but gay." She adds later in the speech: "If you're involved in the gay and lesbian lifestyle, it's bondage. Personal bondage, personal despair, and personal enslavement. And that's why this is so dangerous."

Bachmann can't seem to skirt the topic in recent days: There's been much press about the fact that she signed a pledge written by a Christian group characterizing marriage only as the union between man and one woman. Husband Marcus has come under fire recently for his Medicaid-funded Christian counseling clinic, where one former patient says he was urged to "pray away gay" and stop being a sinner. Check out his account here. (More GOP stories.)

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