Marcus Bachmann says audio of him comparing gays to barbarians was doctored
Friday, July 15, 2011 at 2:31 pm
- 20 Comments
Marcus Bachmann, husband of presidential candidate Michele Bachmann and proprietor of Bachmann & Associates, told the Star Tribune on Thursday that audio of him comparing gays and lesbians to barbarians was doctored. The audio clip was used extensively in the media following reports that Dr. Bachmann’s clinic performed therapy aimed at “curing” gays and lesbians of homosexuality.
In the clip, Point of View radio host Penna Dexter asked Dr. Bachmann what parents should do if a teenager tells them they might be gay.
Bachmann said parents should tell them what the Christian Bible says about homosexuality.
Here’s a transcript of his full remarks:
Dexter: Today The Wall Street Journal came out with an article, “What do you say when your teenager is gay?” What do you say to Christian parents who come up with this?
Bachmann: Well, I think you clearly say, what is the understanding of God’s word on homosexuality. And I think that this is no mystery that a child or pre-adolescent, particularly adolescents, will question and wonder about sexuality. That’s nothing new under the sun since the beginning of time. But I don’t think we should take that as, because we wonder or we think or we question, does that take us down the road of homosexuality —
Dexter: Could you add the word experiment to that?
Bachmann: Well, certainly, there’s that curiosity. But again, we, like, you know, it is as if we have to understand: Barbarians need to be educated. They need to be disciplined. And just because someone feels it or thinks it, doesn’t mean that we’re supposed to go down that road. That’s what’s called the sinful nature. And we have a responsibility as parents and as authority figures not to encourage such thoughts and feelings from moving into the action steps.
Let’s face it what’s our culture doing today? What is our public school system doing today? They are giving full wide open doors to children not only giving encouragement to think it, but to encourage actions steps. That’s why when we understand the percentage of homosexuals in this country is small but by these open doors we can see it is starting to increase.
He told the Star Tribune that he wasn’t talking about gays and lesbians.
“I was talking in reference to children. Nothing, nothing to do with homosexuality. That’s not my mindset. That’s not my belief system. That’s not the way I would talk,” Bachmann said.
Radio host Dexter backed Bachmann up. “It was an endearing term, in a way, that made sense to me and to our audience,” Dexter told the Minneapolis paper. “We believe that children are born with a nature that inclines them to challenge and break rules, and that it is thus the parents’ responsibility to guide their children along good and productive paths.”
Whether or not Bachmann was referring to children or gays and lesbians, based on the interview, it is clear that Dr. Bachmann does not view being gay or lesbian as a good and productive path.
In addition to suggesting his intent was misunderstood, Bachmann also told the Star Tribune that someone must have doctored the audio. That’s similar to what a staff person at Bachmann’s clinic told Truth Wins Out, the group that went undercover to determine whether or not the clinic was conducting “ex-gay” therapy.
“It sounds like… something that someone just did. It doesn’t sound accurate,” the staff person said.
When I listened to the original audio in 2010, which was linked in an article the Minnesota Independent published on Bachmann & Associates’ contracts with the state of Minnesota, it was identical to the recording captured by Dump Bachmann, a blog that follows Michele Bachmann’s career with a sharply critical eye.
That audio was altered for brevity but not the section where Bachmann is speaking about homosexuality: Dr. Bachmann speaks for a full two minutes — uninterrupted by editing — answering the radio host’s question of what to do when a child tells a parent that they may think they are gay.
New York Magazine talked to Ken Avidor of Dump Bachmann, who captured the audio.
“Flat out, I didn’t doctor a damn thing,” said Avidor. “If I did doctor it, why would I have a link to the original podcast, which is no longer up? Marcus could get a hold of that original podcast. Just call up his friends at the station.”
Here’s Avidor’s audio of Bachmann:
Follow Andy Birkey on Twitter20 Comments
Comment posted July 15, 2011 @ 2:39 pm
well Ms Bachmann….I mean Mr Bachmann – that can be easily substantiated…..by a PROFESSIONAL…….lets see where this goes, cuase what it sounds liek deary…is that your (cough,cough) wife’s handlers probabaly told you to Calm it down.
Comment posted July 15, 2011 @ 2:42 pm
This will be a very interesting moment the first time a journalist asks Mrs Bachmann if she is still subservient to her husband, which she has been quoted to say.
Comment posted July 15, 2011 @ 2:49 pm
How can Minnesotan’s stand these people? Both of them taking MN and federal tax monies to finance their sham business and farm and then talking down to the people of MN about self determination and living off the government? What hypocrisy.
Comment posted July 15, 2011 @ 3:08 pm
Con Artists … pretty good at fooling the simple folks here in MN. Not so good at fooling people on the national level. The Bachmann’s are Pathological LIARS and Scammers. The point to all of this undercover investigation is to prove the Marcus Bachmann is a LIAR. It did just that with hard evidence. There are other clients from years back who have come forward to out Marcus and the clinic with the destructive and dangerous form of bogus ‘religious-based’ therapy practices. It’s CONSUMER FRAUD on the taxpayers dime. These people belong in prison. The next huge story will be that about how Marcus isn’t even qualified to be any sort of counselor or therapist. Actually, I think that too is now coming to light.
BACHMANNS = HUGE FAIL
America cannot afford to put people like this into any sort of power positions again.
Comment posted July 15, 2011 @ 3:44 pm
BARBARIANS UNITE!!!
LOL
Um…. and correct me if I’m wrong but isn’t the new CONAN the BARBARIAN movie coming out this year? Is Conan playing a gay role? Actually, that would be sort of hot.
Comment posted July 15, 2011 @ 4:31 pm
Gay Conan being hot… As long as its not a Bachmann look a like.
Comment posted July 15, 2011 @ 5:11 pm
Like Husband, like Wife
Both Bachmanns on tape saying outlandish things, then denying that they did not say such things. LIARS the both of them!!
Comment posted July 15, 2011 @ 9:15 pm
It now appears that Marcus is as big a liar as Michele. They claim to be “christians.” When I went to Sunday School, we were taught the importance of telling the truth. It’s in the 10 Commandments, for god’s sake. How can the Bachmanns tell such bald-faced lies and then unashamedly claim to be “christian.” They can’t be trusted in anything.
Comment posted July 16, 2011 @ 3:19 am
The Bachmanns are Christian fundamentalists — which by definition means that the TRUTH for them is precisely what they have chosen to believe either to feel better about their guilt, or because they were brought up that way in their church. So talking sense just flies right past them. The ore logic you make, they will just say that FAITH is more important, and that God is mysterious, etc. etc. That they are lying constantly doesn’t phase them — inf fact, it actually generates pious feelings for them.
Comment posted July 16, 2011 @ 5:46 am
Say what Christian Evangelicals will, homosexuality as such is hardly an issue in the Bible. The men who threatened to rape Lot’s angelic guests (Gen. 19) and the sojourning Levite (Judges 19) were really heterosexual thugs, the kind found in prisons, who rape other men to show their dominance over them, an act of brutality not lust. The proverbial 300-lb “Bubba.” The rape scene in the film Deliverance offers a good example.
In many cultures past and present it is accepted practice for a macho man to demonstrate his masculinity by sodomizing a weaker man or a homosexual. In my native Cuba, for instance, there are men who boast they now and then take pleasure in servicing “patos.” As long as there is no affection on the part of the man perpetrating the act, such acts are not regarded as homosexuality. In both the Genesis and Judges stories the God-fearing hosts tried to appease the thugs by offering them their virgin daughters, which clearly indicates that the thugs were not homosexuals. In the Judges 19 story, the thugs settled for the sojourner’s concubine, in what is perhaps the most harrowing rape scene ever written.
The Mosaic Law did prescribe the death penalty for homosexuality, but also did for murder, rape, kidnapping, witchcraft, idolatry, treason, sedition, contempt of court, temple desecration, cursing one’s parents, pre-marital sex, adultery, incest, and amorous relations with animals—this last sin apparently a nagging problem in the shepherding culture of the Chosen People, not only for the people, but for the sheep and goats as well.
Mentions of sodomy—vague allusions to sexual transgressions (non-reproductive sex? recreational sex?) crop now and then in the Old Testament, but homosexuality as such only twice. In the New Testament, Paul denounces both male and female homosexuality (Rom. 1: 26-27), but Jesus Christ, the ultimate authority on what is and isn’t sinful, doesn’t mention homosexuality at all. In the New King James Version, Paul makes a distinction between homosexuals and sodomites. Obviously there was a difference between the two. (Cor. 6:9).
Homophobic Evangelicals should read the Scriptures more carefully. God didn’t destroy Sodom and Gomorrah because folks there were gay, but because they were incorrigibly wicked.
Comment posted July 16, 2011 @ 8:18 am
The problem is that the fox news crowd – the uninformed right that make up her base – is going to believe this. They are going to believe that the tape was doctored and that this is a shot a michelle. The bachmanns are going to make a ton of money by using this liberal and elitist attack and smear campaign in their fund raising.
Comment posted July 16, 2011 @ 10:24 am
But, but, but… Michelle is proud of their harmful Medicaid fraud racket.
I’m sure Janet “one cell thick” Boynes wants her slice of the pie too.
Comment posted July 16, 2011 @ 4:51 pm
Marcus Bachman says insists he is a doctor.
Marcus Bachman insists the tape was doctored.
The word ‘doctor’ means the same thing in both.
Comment posted July 16, 2011 @ 8:56 pm
I spent a wonderful 3 hours in hte heat and humidity enjoying myself at Gay Pride today in Rochester.
What a bunch of Barbarians they were too! NOT!!!
Comment posted July 16, 2011 @ 10:31 pm
Cowards the lot of them. These right wing goofballs, when surrounded by their peers, are quite brave and speak what they all feel, but when someone calls them on it they deny and make excuses. What a joke.
Really though it wasn’t the content that surprised me it was the WAY he said it. If someone were to attempt to manufacture a stereotypical “gay sounding” voice, Marcus Backman’s voice is exactly what the would come up with. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
The more I get to know the Bachmans the more I like them. You couldn’t ask for a better example of the craziness of the Christian Right movement.
Pingback posted July 17, 2011 @ 11:51 am
[...] to the Star Tribune as cited by The Minnesota Independent, Marcus Bachmann is now denying the context of his barbarian comments blasted at LGBT people. As [...]
Comment posted July 18, 2011 @ 6:41 am
Ladybird Marcus lies like dog! He’s taught his wife well. These flat-earthers need an intervention.
Comment posted July 18, 2011 @ 9:55 am
This is a must read about the Bachmanns ultimate quest and ambitions.
“It sounds so fringe but yet it’s not fringe,” Tabachnick says. “They’ve been working with Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich, Michele Bachmann, Sam Brownback, and now Rick Perry. … They are becoming much more politically noticeable.”
Some of the fiercest critics of the New Apostolic Reformation come from within the Pentecostal and charismatic world. The Assemblies of God Church, the largest organized Pentecostal denomination, specifically repudiated self-proclaimed prophets and apostles in 2000, calling their creed a “deviant teaching” that could rapidly “become dictatorial, presumptuous, and carnal.”
“But what makes the New Apostolic Reformation movement so potent is its growing fascination with infiltrating politics and government. The new prophets and apostles believe Christians—certain Christians—are destined to not just take “dominion” over government, but stealthily climb to the commanding heights of what they term the “Seven Mountains” of society, including the media and the arts and entertainment world. They believe they’re intended to lord over it all. As a first step, they’re leading an “army of God” to commandeer civilian government.”
“https://www.texasobserver.org/cover-story/rick-perrys-army-of-god
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