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. First hosted in 2006, it gathers Christian conservatives from around the country to strategize on issues such as opposing abortion and LGBT rights.

Along with FRC, the summit is also being organized by another group that the SPLC has labeled a hate group, the American Family Association.

Two other presidential candidates, Ron Paul and Rick Santorum, will be speaking at the summit as well, along with top national Republicans. Speaker John Boehner of Ohio, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor of Virginia, Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio and Rep. Steve King of Iowa are also speaking.

The summit has been the scene of controversy in the past. In 2008, vendors sold “Obama Waffles” with packaging many viewed as racist. Past summit speakers have made the claim that the anti-Christ will be a gay man, and a preacher made the case that it’s okay to call gays “faggots.”

Here’s Bachmann speaking at the 2010 Values Voter Summit:

And in 2009:

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.

Company spokeswoman Brenda Morrow confirmed to the Journal that the company is making plans for an expansion into the Twin Cities. “Minneapolis is slated as one of our major markets for growth for where we’d like to see Chick-fil-A go,” she said. “We don’t anticipate anything for this year or next year.”

Since 2003, Chick-fil-A has given more than $1 million to anti-gay groups including the Family Research Council and the Alliance Defense Fund, according to a report by Equality Matters. The report also noted that Chick-fil-A terminates employees the restaurant chain views as “sinful,” has partnered with Focus on the Family, and its charitable foundation, WinShape, holds programs to “promote a biblical standard of marriage.”

WinShape has also thrown financial support to the National Organization for Marriage, a group that has been very active in the campaign in Minnesota to amend the state constitution to bar same-sex marriage.

Chick-fil-A has dodged questions about its ties to anti-gay groups. In a statement the company said, “Our Chick-fil-A Operators and their employees try very hard every day to go the extra mile in serving ALL of our customers with honor, dignity and respect.”

Students at at least six colleges and universities have launched efforts to get the restaurant chain removed from campus.

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.

Many, but not all, of the policy council fundraisers are being held in early primary states. Presidential candidates Michele Bachmann, Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum and Herman Cain have all signed on to headline FRC-affiliated fundraisers.

The Florida Family Policy Council announced last week that Bachmann will headline its annual fundraising gala at the end of August. The Aug. 27 event, the group’s “6th Annual Policy Awards Dinner,” is billed by the group as the “conservative dinner event of the year,” with a theme of “Igniting a Cultural Transformation.”

The Ignite campaign, which more than a dozen participating family policy councils have refused to discuss openly, is raising millions for the state-based groups as part of a strategy to capitalize on Republican wins in 2010.

In addition to Bachmann, the Florida event will also honor Mike Haridopolos, president of the Florida Senate, and Florida House Speaker Dean Cannon.

The FFPC has been very active in Florida politics and was instrumental in getting an anti-gay marriage amendment passed. “Failing to ban gay marriage in the state constitution could result in the indoctrination of schoolchildren into a gay lifestyle,” the group said in 2008.

The group also used an absurd photo depicting the wrong lesbian couple when a judge overturned the state’s ban on adoptions by same-sex couples.

Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain will be on hand for a fundraiser gala benefiting the Family Foundation of Virginia. The theme for the Richmond event is “Our time is now!”

The Family Foundation was instrumental in passing an anti-gay marriage amendment in Virginia in 2006.

The Family Institute of Connecticut is hosting its annual banquet on Sept. 30 and have signed on presidential candidate Rick Santorum.

“Same-sex marriage is being wielded as a weapon to push the gospel out of American society altogether,” Peter Wolfgang, head of FIC, recently said. Same-sex marriage is legal in Connecticut.

Wolfgang’s group has spent considerable time this year opposing rights for transgender people in the state. FIC has hosted rallies against what it calls the “bathroom bill,” a piece of legislation that would ban discrimination against transgender people in public accommodations.

“It takes away parental rights to object to cross-dressing persons — or persons who permanently express characteristics of both sexes — teaching in the classroom,” Wolfgang said.

Wolfgang testified against the bill in March:

Wolfgang’s group lost that battle and the bill was signed into law in July.

Earlier this year, presidential candidate Newt Gingrich headlined a fundraiser for the Minnesota Family Council. Bachmann was also in attendance.

At the Minnesota Family Council event, Gingich was showered with glitter by an activist supportive of LGBT rights. The Minnesota Family Council was successful in getting a measure on the ballot in 2012 to add a ban on same-sex marriage to the state constitution.

The Minnesota Family Council has also come under criticism for statements on its website that accuse gays and lesbians of eating feces and engaging in sex with children and animals.

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.

Peter Sprigg of the Family Research Council, which has been listed as a “hate group” by the SPLC, appeared on MSNBC alongside Log Cabin Republicans executive director R. Clarke Cooper.

“If this is indeed a Christian counseling center then is should not be surprising that the counselors help clients live their lives constituent with Christian values,” Sprigg said.

But Cooper thought the news could spell trouble for Bachmann’s presidential campaign.

“It will hurt her… If voters see the Republican Party, if they see us as intolerant and attacking a certain population of fellow Americans, it’s not a winning combination. I’m not the only one who says this. There are many other strategists that, regardless of their orientation, are concerned that we could lose the voters that we gained in the 2010 election cycle.”

The head of FRC, Tony Perkins, also defended Bachmann in a press release on Tuesday.

“Apart from Washington, D.C., and homosexual interest groups, the majority of the country will view Marcus’s work for what it is, a ministry of hope,” he said. “Pointing men and women who struggle with same-sex attractions to God isn’t ‘a discredited form of therapy,’ it’s the path to sexual healing. And it’s capable of bringing thousands of people out of bondage and into healthy behavior and a fuller relationship with Christ.”

Peter LaBarbera of Americans for the Truth about Homosexuality blasted ABC News’ report, which featured undercover video from Truth Wins Out, a group that opposes such “ex-gay” therapy. AFTAH, too, is considered an anti-gay hate group by the SPLC.

“Folks, it sure didn’t take long for the liberal media to go into Christian-bashing mode against GOP presidential candidate Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.),” LaBarbera said in a statement. He called ABC’s report, a “comically biased hit-piece by ABC’s Brian Ross — featuring the militantly anti-Christian homosexual organization Truth Wins Out.”

The conservative Accuracy in the Media calls Ross’ piece a “pathetic hit job” and characterizes homosexuality as a “disease-ridden lifestyle.”

In AIM’s piece, LaBarbera is quoted, likening being gay or lesbian to drug addiction: “We don’t mock the idea of leaving drug addiction or alcoholism with God’s help. Why is it acceptable to mock faith in God to overcome unwanted behaviors like homosexuality in their lives?”

David Brody of Pat Robertson’s CBN News — a part of Robertson’s 700 Club empire — also spoke out against the news reports.

“[ABC's] crew decided to do an ‘undercover investigation’ about the use of reparative therapy at the Christian clinic owned by Michele and Marcus Bachmann. It is designed to convert gays back to heterosexuality through prayer and a therapeutic clinical process,” he wrote. “First of all, you’re kidding me right? They did an undercover investigation to make the point that the healing power of Jesus Christ can transform lives? That’s what passes for an undercover investigation nowadays? Oy-gevalt.”

Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays and Gays, a group that encourages gays to attempt to become straight, criticized the reports as well.

“The Bachmann incident demonstrates that as homosexuals gain more civil rights, heterosexuals are losing theirs,” wrote Greg Quinlan, the group’s head. “Because gays are a wealthy and politically powerful minority, they claim access to media attention, political power and corporate influence that middle America does not have.”

He continued, “Wayne Besen of the hate group Truth Wins Out, and other modern day Sauls, stalk and expose ‘out’ ex-gays in a negative light to ensure that they retreat back into the closet. Lambda Legal supports the establishment of GLBT Centers at public universities but blocks any attempt at ex-gay equal access. Corporate shareholder resolutions to include ex-gays in anti-discrimination policies are repeatedly defeated by the gay community.”

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 this afternoon, Gov. Mark Dayton said he’d fight it “with every fiber of my being.”

The New Jersey-based National Organization for Marriage urged its supporters to rally at the Minnesota Capitol.

“Gay marriage advocates are mounting a furious last-minute assault on Republican legislators in an effort to cow them into delaying the vote authorizing the marriage amendment until sometime next year,” wrote the group’s executive director. “They are rallying supporters all around the country to contact Minnesota legislators asking them to stop the marriage amendment.”

Tony Perkins of the Washington, D.C.–based Family Research Council, an organization recently dubbed a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law center, sent an alert out as well:

The people of Minnesota deserve a full and open debate to decide the future of marriage. The only ones served by putting this vote off are gay marriage advocates, not Minnesota voters or Minnesota families.

As we speak, your state Representative is under attack by those opposed to allowing your voice to be heard. This bill is a direct threat to powerful interest groups, the small number of lawmakers who listen to them and the even smaller number of judges who are willing to foist a new definition of marriage on Minnesota.

The Catholic Defense League of Minnesota wrote about LGBT advocates “taking one last shot” at legislators:

Those of us who believe that the destruction of marriage is not only immoral but also extremely destructive of the social fabric of our country, have watched with hopeful anticipation as the bill wound its way through the legislature.

On Thursday, May 19 (tomorrow as I write this), the Minnesota House will likely take up the bill. Opposition forces such as Out Front Minnesota will be there to try to “take one last shot” at the legislators.

We have an opportunity, while investing minimal time, to fight back. As the legislators convene at the House chambers, there will be opposition forces there to try to intimidate them.

A vote on the amendment is expected on the House floor on Thursday afternoon. And LBGT advocates are planning a 2:30 rally at the Capitol to coincide with the vote.

Following a House committee vote on Wednesday to send the bill to the House floor, Gov. Dayton told reporters he would fight it “with every fiber of my being.”

Dayton has no power to veto the amendment, but he does have the bully pulpit.

“I think Minnesotans have much more compassion and understanding than they recognize and I think it will be defeated next year,” he said.

In an interview with the Family Research Council (FRC) 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.”

FRC’s Tony Perkins said to Bachmann, “We need to defund the government takeover of health care. That needs to be included in the temporary or permanent fixes to the budget.”

Bachmann said, “Right now it doesn’t look that way like we will, and I’m very sorry to see that and i want to thank your listeners and viewers, they literally melted phone lines.”

She continued, “Because of the fact they pushed so hard now we are seeing in the 2012 budget, we are seeing a full repeal and defunding of ‘Obamacare’ for the 2012 proposed budget.”

But she was hopeful for next year. “Maybe not necessarily this week will we see that, but now we are seeing that in the Republican budget for 2012.”

She again claimed that the Affordable Care Act will fund abortions

“‘Obamacare’ for the first time in the history of this country will have taxpayer subsidized abortion in the health care bill. President Obama denied it, we know that it’s true. It’s already come true in Pennsylvania. We don’t want to see taxpayer-funded abortion.”

Despite Bachmann’s statement, numerous fact-checkers have dubbed the claim false. Politifact and Factcheck.org both evaluated numerous claims that the new health law pays for abortion and found those claims lacking truth.

As for Pennsylvania, the claim that “Obamacare” is paying for abortions there has been soundly debunked, most notably .

Perkins asked Bachmann, “How can folks that are watching pray for you?”

She said, “To have stamina and health and also more than anything I would ask for prayers for wisdom and for guidance. That is the most important thing.”

She continued, “Solomon said of the Lord when he was praying he wanted wisdom and understanding. For anyone who is in public office it doesn’t take long to realize the limits of our human ability.”

“We need a supernatural ability and that’s something only the Lord would provide.”

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.

The summit includes courses for legislators such as “Bullying bills: The homosexual agenda in your child’s public school” and “Why family matters,” but the bulk of the summit appears to be focused on getting an amendment on the ballot in 2012 banning gay marriage.

Sessions entitled “Effective marriage protection amendment strategies” and “What’s the harm in same-sex marriage?” are aimed at getting the amendment passed, and the latter is taught by a man who once said gays should be “exported” and that homosexuality should be outlawed: Peter Sprigg of the Family Research Council.

The SPLC cited Sprigg’s often controversial statements in its rationale for listing the Family Research Council as a hate group. According to the SPLC, Sprigg said, “I would much prefer to export homosexuals from the United States than to import them.”

And last year, he told MSNBC’s host Chris Matthews, “I think there would be a place for criminal sanctions on homosexual behavior.” When Matthews asked, “So we should outlaw gay behavior?” Sprigg replied, “Yes.”

Also scheduled to spea is the Family Research Council’s Cynthia Hill. Last summer she said that LGBT candidates shouldn’t be elected to office.

“Americans should take a cold, hard look at the consequences of significant wins by openly lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgender (LGBT) candidates in last night’s races,” she said. “This is the fruition of that community’s methodical efforts to further homosexualize America.”

Invited, but not confirmed, is David Barton of Wallbuilders. Barton’s name has become known in political circles as the man who will teach part of Rep. Michele Bachmann’s tea party Constitution classes in the 112th Congress.

Here’s the invite:

Minnesota Marriage _ Family Summit –

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.”

FRC, for instance, has suggested that gays be “exported” from the United States and says that homosexuality should be criminalized. The American Family Association, another group that Pawlenty and Bachmann are supporting, recently said that Supreme Court Justice Elana Kagan should be disqualified from office because she’s a lesbian (she’s not).

The AFA has made some particularly bizarre statements. Bryan Fischer, AFA’s director of Issue Analysis for Government and Public Policy, recently said, “Hitler recruited around him homosexuals to make up his Stormtroopers, they were his enforcers, they were his thugs. And Hitler discovered that he could not get straight soldiers to be savage and brutal and vicious enough to carry out his orders, but that homosexual solders basically had no limits and the savagery and brutality they were willing to inflict on whomever Hitler sent them after. So he surrounded himself, virtually all of the Stormtroopers, the Browshirts, were male homosexuals.”

The open letter, signed by Bachmann and Pawlenty, reads, “We, the undersigned, stand in solidarity with Family Research Council, American Family Association, Concerned Women of America, National Organization for Marriage, Liberty Counsel and other pro-family organizations that are working to protect and promote natural marriage and family. We support the vigorous but responsible exercise of the First Amendment rights of free speech and religious liberty that are the birthright of all Americans.”

The SPLC, in releasing its list, noted that the organizations were not chosen for their biblical values or promotion of “traditional marriage.”

“Even as some well-known anti-gay groups like Focus on the Family moderate their views, a hard core of smaller groups, most of them religiously motivated, have continued to pump out demonizing propaganda aimed at homosexuals and other sexual minorities,” the SPLC said when it released its report. “These groups’ influence reaches far beyond what their size would suggest, because the ‘facts’ they disseminate about homosexuality are often amplified by certain politicians, other groups and even news organizations.”

The group added,“Generally, the SPLC’s listings of these groups is based on their propagation of known falsehoods — claims about LGBT people that have been thoroughly discredited by scientific authorities — and repeated, groundless name-calling. Viewing homosexuality as unbiblical does not qualify organizations for listing as hate groups.”

The SPLC’s research spans across the spectrum of political ideology, focusing on anti-immigration groups, white supremacist and black separatist groups, neo-Nazis and eco-terrorist groups.

Also backing the AFA and FRC: The Minnesota Family Council’s chairman David Eaton and its CEO John Helmberger.

Here’s the letter:

pawlentybachmannletter

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.

“We are one of the rare groups that is opposed single-mindedly against the homosexual activist movement,” said LaBarbera, who founded AFTAH in 1996. “The so-called gay lobby has reached the zenith of its power. They are everywhere.”

“I don’t feel like a homophobe; as one guy said, I’m homo-nauseated,” he continued. “They are everywhere. You can’t get away from them, even in the schools, so today we are interviewing Barb Anderson of the Minnesota Family Council.”

Both LaBarbera and Anderson agreed that AFTAH’s recognition by the SPLC is a point of pride.

“There’s a lot of hatred out there in the so-called gay lobby,” LaBarbera said.

Anderson agreed: “Absolutely. They call us a hate group but the emails and the responses we get from them are just full of anger and hateful comments that they make towards us.”

“I think it’s becoming perhaps a badge of honor to be called a hate group,” said Anderson.

LaBarbera added, “If you are not on the SPLC hate list, you are not doing enough.”

“You are not doing your job,” agreed Anderson. “I think the greatest threat to our freedom and to the health and well-being of our children is from this radical homosexual agenda which is just so pervasive.”

The SPLC released a new list of anti-gay groups and added new names to its list of hate groups. LaBarbera’s AFTAH was listed for the first time this month. The SPLC reported that AFTAH intentionally spreads false information about LGBT people, including erroneously stating that gay men are more likely to be pedophiles and that gays and lesbians die 24 years sooner than heterosexual on average.

The SPLC is “a nonprofit civil rights organization dedicated to fighting hate and bigotry, and to seeking justice for the most vulnerable members of society.” The group’s hate-crimes map includes a wide range of groups from Neo-Nazis and militias to black separatists and anti-immigrant groups, and its reports have focused on groups across the political spectrum, including “eco-terrorists,” “Christian-identity” groups and “nativist extremist” organizations.

The SPLC said the new listings represent groups that have grown more anti-LGBT in recent years.

“Even as some well-known anti-gay groups moderate their views, smaller groups, most of them religiously motivated, have continued to pump out demonizing propaganda aimed at LGBT people,” the group wrote in a statement announcing the designations. “Generally, the SPLC’s listings of these groups is based on their propagation of known falsehoods — claims about LGBT people that have been thoroughly discredited by scientific authorities — and repeated, groundless name-calling. Viewing homosexuality as unbiblical does not qualify organizations for listing as hate groups.”

The Minnesota Family Council also has a relationship with another group that the SPLC listed as a hate group: The Family Research Council.

Tony Perkins, head of the Washington-based Family Research Council, said “one of the primary goals of the homosexual rights movement is to abolish all age of consent laws and to eventually recognize pedophiles as the ‘prophets’ of a new sexual order.” That’s one of several statements that caused the SPLC to label his group as a hate group.

Perkins has also had relationships with white supremacist groups, the SPLC reports.

The Minnesota Family Council has invited Perkins to speak in Minnesota a number of times. The group brought him in, along with Focus on the Family’s James Dobson, for a rally in 2006. And in 2005, MFC welcomed Perkins for an anti-gay marriage rally at the Minnesota Capitol.

Also making the SPLC’s list is the American Family Association. AFA’s director of analysis for government and policy, Bryan Fischer, has made some controversial claims, including claims that “[h]omosexuality gave us Adolph Hitler, and homosexuals in the military gave us the Brown Shirts, the Nazi war machine and 6 million dead Jews.” The group has also pushed to criminalize homosexuality and force gays and lesbians to undergo “ex-gay” therapy.

The Minnesota Family Council brought AFA’s executive director Don Wildmon to Bloomington in 2006 to speak along with Gov. Tim Pawlenty and Rep. Michele Bachmann’s controversial Constitution class teacher David Barton.

The Minnesota Family Council did not respond to the Minnesota Independent’s request for comment about the SPLC’s list or its associations with groups that the SPLC characterizes as hate groups.

In her conversation with LaBarbera, Anderson acknowledged that she helped form the Parents Action League, a group that advocates against stronger anti-bullying policies targeted toward LGBT students in the Anoka-Hennepin School District. That district that rose to national attention following the death of Justin Aaberg, whose family and friends said he took his own life after experiencing anti-gay harassment and bullying.

“We have formed a group called the Parents Action League, and this was formed in response to a very aggressive group called the Gay Equity Team in our school district, which is trying to drive all of this gay agenda into the classroom,” said Anderson. “They want the homosexual indoctrination to take place in every classroom and every grade level and tell our kids that homosexuality is natural, normal and innate and they want to take advantage of teachable moments, which is another issue that is always a red flag for me.”

The Gay Equity Team states that its goals are to “revise the district’s harassment and violence policy to include language that specifically protects students of all sexual orientations and gender identities,” to “secure training for all staff that adequately addresses the needs of GLBT students and families,” and to “eliminate the Sexual Orientation Curriculum Policy – or the GLBT Censorship Policy – because GLBT students, families, and staff are worthy of acknowledgment, equity, and respect.”

The Parents Action League wants the district to teach that gays can become straight, or “ex-gay,” an assertion that has been debunked by virtually every major medical organization. Anderson reiterated that mission in her interview with LaBarbera.

He asked her, “Have you succeeded in exposing kids to bringing these ex-gays speakers, former homosexuals, into the classroom at all?”

“Not at all,” she replied. “In fact, I talked to our diversity director who brought in homosexual students in our [Seeking Educational Equity and Diversity] training which is a whole another topic. And I said, ‘Why did you bring them in when we have a neutrality policy?’ And he said, ‘Well, they are neutral.’ And I asked if we could have equal time for ex-gays and he said no because that would not be neutral.”

Listen to the full interview with Anderson (11/27/10): MP3

Here’s a clip of Bachmann at the 2009 summit:

Here’s Bachmann at the 2008 event:

And here’s Gov. Tim Pawlenty at the 2009 event: