Michele Bachmann has confirmed that she will speak at the Values Voters Summit in Washington, DC, in October. Bachmann has attended the summit, put together by the Family Research Council, an organization that is listed as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, for the past four years.
The Minneapolis-St. Paul Business Journal reported on Friday that Chick-fil-A, a southern-style chicken sandwich franchise, is planning on expanding its reach into the Twin Cities market by 2013. Chick-fil-A has come under scrutiny and some protest for donating considerable resources to anti-gay causes, including to organizations labeled hate groups by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
A number of Republican presidential candidates, including Minnesota’s Michele Bachmann and Tim Pawlenty, are raising money for family policy councils, state-based religious-right groups affiliated with the Family Research Council, a group that the Southern Poverty Law Center says is an anti-gay hate group.
Several religious right groups — including those listed as anti-gay hate groups by the Southern Poverty Law Center — rushed to Michele Bachmann’s defense following reports that she and her husband Marcus’ Christian counseling clinic performs therapy intended to cure homosexuality. The groups argued that the controversial therapy is successful and that media reports of the practices of Bachmann’s clinic amount to anti-Christian bias.
Religious right groups praised the House Rules Committee vote on Wednesday morning to pass an amendment that would codify a gay marriage ban in the Minnesota Constitution, but also called for action against “gay activists” who would “assault,” “attack” or “take one last shot” at Republican legislators. While conservative Christians rally the troops for a possible vote on the House floor Thursday afternoon, Gov. Mark Dayton said he’d fight it “with every fiber of my being.”
In an interview with the Family Research Council on Tuesday evening, Rep. Michele Bachmann admitted that the new health care law won’t be defunded in 2011. The FRC hosted a webcast called “Time to Act: How big government is fiscally and morally bankrupting America,” during which Bachmann also said she wants FRC’s membership to pray for her and other Republicans to have “supernatural abilities.”
When state legislators checked their office mailboxes Wednesday, they found an invitation to attend a Minnesota Family and Marriage Summit featuring a group that the Southern Poverty Law Center identifies as a hate group. The summit, to be held next week, is organized by the Minnesota Family Council and the Family Research Council and will teach legislators how to pass a constitutional amendment banning rights for same-sex couples.
Rep. Michele Bachmann and Gov. Tim Pawlenty have thrown their support behind the Family Research Council and other groups that the Southern Poverty Law Center has designated as anti-gay hate groups. In an open letter, Bachmann, Pawlenty and several other Republican elected officials say the SPLC has “targeted FRC and other organizations that uphold Judeo-Christian moral views, including marriage as the union of a man and a woman.” But the SPLC’s report, released last month does not target groups that oppose gay marriage or uphold Christian values; rather it lists groups that make “claims about LGBT people that have been thoroughly discredited by scientific authorities” and “repeated, groundless name-calling.”
The Minnesota Family Council’s Barb Anderson sat down with Peter LaBarbera of Americans for the Truth About Homosexuality (AFTAH) for a radio interview recently. The duo talked about bringing “ex-gays” into the Anoka-Hennepin School District and the fact that AFTAH is now listed as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, a designation Anderson calls a “badge of honor.” The organization recently added 13 new groups to its hate-group map, many for anti-gay positions. The Minnesota Family Council, which opposes homosexuality, has associations with a number of groups that are now on the SPLC list.
Rep. Michele Bachmann has confirmed she will be speaking at the Values Voter Summit in Washington, D.C., in September. The event is organized by the Family Research Council, a group that opposes homosexuality, and it is one of…
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