MICHELE BACHMANN: THE EFFECTS OF GAY MARRIAGE ON EDUCATION

For the many new visitors to this blog, here is some vintage Bachmannalia:



Partial transcript:

EdWatch.com National Education Conference, 11/6/04, Bloomington, MN (download complete audio here)

“Something that was meant for evil was used for good.”—referring to the Massachusetts court decision that legalized gay marriage (evil) and also, according to Bachmann, re-elected George Bush (good).

“One of the reasons why I felt I was called to take up this issue, of bringing a constitutional amendment to the state of Minnesota before our people—I was the chief author in the senate—is because of the profound impact this would have on every man, every woman, every child in the state of Minnesota. Because everyone thought this would only impact the 1.3 percent of our population that is a same-sex individual.

“And again, don’t misunderstand. I am not here bashing people who are homosexuals, who are lesbians, who are bisexual, who are transgendered. 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. This is a very real issue. It’s not funny, it’s sad.

“Any of you who have members of your family that are in the lifestyle—we have a member of our family that is. This is not funny. It’s a very sad life. It’s part of Satan, I think, to say this is gay. It’s anything but gay. “


“It’s profoundly sad to recognize that almost all, if not all, individuals who have gone into the lifestyle have been abused at one time in their life, either by a male or by a female. There’s been profound hurt and profound things that have happened in almost all of their lives.”


“This new legal enforcement of a new status—homosexuality, lesbianism, bringing it into the mainstream, if you will, giving it a legitimacy if you will, that will impact not only the gay community, but every man, woman and child, particularly the schools. Because the first thing that will occur, once the legalization occurs, is that if this curriculum is not being taught already, it will be mandated, it must be taught in the schools. You cannot get out of it. Why? If you would not teach this, it would be considered discriminatory.”


“It is the parents who have the right to control and direct their child’s education. That would be wiped off the books. The parents would lose what is arguably one of the most profound issues any parent could talk to their children about—what?—identity, sexual identity. What’s the first thing we look at when a baby is born? Is it a boy? Is it a girl? One of the first items of identity. Knowing that when god created us, god created us in his image, in his likeness. And then we would have to, the children would have to be taught a falsehood because they’re in a captive audience in the public schools. They couldn’t get out. Teachers would be forced to teach this curriculum, whether it violated their conscience or not, and then parents would lose the right to direct and control their child’s education.”

WHY IS IT SO DANGEROUS?

“It leads to the personal enslavement of individuals. Because 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.”


“(Gay activists want to) make gays look good, because they (media) didn’t always. If you’ll recall television maybe 15, 20 years ago, if you’d see something about gays it would be an outlandish kind of an outfit, it would be a kind of tittering, making fun. But that’s different now. Now gays are made to look good.” –Commenting on gay strategies and lamenting the good old days of television when gays could be ridiculed.


Bachmann on anti-gay hate-monger Fred Phelps: “I almost think that the gay community has hired this guy, or created this guy, to do what he does. He is their best friend.”


“Having gay characters alone is not enough for tv shows. Take the case of the Bravo program. It’s called Queer Eye for the Straight Guy. This has really become a mainstream show. It’s very popular with the make-over theme. They take style-challenged straight men who need the help of a fashionably superior gay man, in some sort of a cross between This Old House meets a pre-incarcerated Martha Stewart. You know, that kind of thing. But in this case it’s ok, see, because it’s even entertaining to tell a straight man that they should change. But tell a gay man that he should change and that is considered homophobic blasphemy. And the power of this tv show is not lost on the media writers who are in the know in this world and who we are all supposed to take out cues from. Even Mark Simpson who writes or Salon.com, as media writer, said quote, “in a make-over culture, it is the ultimate make-over, because what’s being made over is masculinity itself.”


“HBO now features gay and lesbian characters on several shows—6 Feet Under, Oz, the Wire. There’s a remarkably popular show that’s in syndicated reruns. I hope no child ever watches this show—Sex in the City—and that features a gay character. That show has now been cancelled but it continues live on TBS channel. It’s received highly critical acclaim, so that tells you don’t watch it. And it’s been nominated for and it’s received all sorts of Emmy awards. Then go over to Showtime and they have a gaggle of gay characters on Queer Is Folk. They also spotlight lesbianism on a show that’s called The L Word.”


“We’ve all but lost the generation that is under 30 years of age. Some would say under 40 years of age. Because this generation has already shrugged its shoulders, gotten on the boat of apathy and said “Yeah, hey, what’s wrong (with being gay)? It’s just another choice.”


“Almost any behavior starts to look normal if you’re exposed to enough of it in close quarters and among your acquaintenances. Close quarters? How about the classroom? How about among your acquaintenances? How about with your classmates?”


“This occurs all the time, where the gay community tries to pass off that this is an immutable physical characteristic. You need to know there is not one scientific study anywhere that has shown that this is an immutable physical characteristic. In fact, the gay community often, when they know they’re in a situation where they know they’ll be challenged, don’t bring it up, because they know that will hurt their cause, not help them.”


Referring to a videotape of a teacher talking about being gay: “This message could be very easily misunderstood. Who is he speaking to—8-year-old boys? And so you have a teacher talking about his gayness. He goes home then, and says ‘Hey mom, what’s gayness? We had a teacher talking about this today.’ The mother says ‘Well, that’s when a man likes other men and they don’t like girls.’ The boy’s 8, he’s thinking ‘I don’t like girls. I like boys. Maybe I’m gay.’ And you think, that’s way out there. Kid isn’t gonna think that. Are you kidding? That happens all the time. You don’t think that’s intentional, the message that’s being given to these kids? That’s child abuse.”


“Have you noticed that the media is very selective in its compassion? At the very same time that Matthew Shepherd was tragically killed, there was a case of another young boy—you may have heard about him. His name was Jesse Dirkheisen (sic)—that little boy, he was 12 years old. He was kidnapped, he was brutally raped, he was murdered by two gay men. This occurred the same week as Matthew Shepherd. We heard a lot about Matthew Shepherd. We heard almost nothing about little Jesse Dirkheisen (sic). Why? Because Jesse did not serve the purpose of those sympathetic to homosexuality.” (The 12-year-old kid’s name was Jesse Dirkheiser.)

“This guy Kevin Jennings flies around the country teaching these teacher training workshops. You need to know that 2 percent of all that we spend on education in Minnesota is set aside for teacher training workshops. Two percent of our state budget. These guys become millionaires flying around the country teaching this trash, teaching this garbage, and unfortunately, our teachers are not well-equipped enough to know they’re just being taught so much trash. Well, skewed statistics are an interesting thing because they’re primarily harvested—Kevin Jennings did—he got his statistics from biased homosexual sources. That’s never told when he goes out speaking. He used discredited findings by Dr. Kinsey that says that 10 percent of our population is homosexual. That’s the most thoroughly discredited statistic there is today. The highest population of homosexuals in the United States is California—1.5 percent of the population—and Massachusetts, where the infamous decision was rendered—1.3 percent of the population.

“Also, he stated that 3,000 gay youth commit suicide each year, when the 1998 statistical abstract of the United States says there are only 2,200 suicides among all youth. Nobody challenges him on this because nobody knows. The fundamentally flawed principle is that it assumes homosexual orientation is normal and natural. That’s the first premise. He also presupposes that homosexuality is unchangeable and fixed at birth. He also fails to acknowledge other psychological factors that could contribute to homosexual youth committing suicide, like family problems or abuse or maybe the fact of what they’re doing.”

(FACT: The overall rate of suicide among youth has declined slowly since 1992…In 2001, 3,971 suicides were reported in this group (Anderson and Smith 2003).)


It’s dangerous because “The personal enslavement that will occur from individuals who get bound up in this lifestyle of sexual anarchy. That’s what I call it, sexual anarchy, because we know it isn’t freedom, it’s license.”


“Because the radical transformation of society and personal enslavement of the individual is why teaching this curriculum is so dangerous in our schools today.”