Today, at the National Press Club, Michele Bachmann was asked about her husband’s clinic. She avoided the question again.
This time there was no shoving or tossing mics, but she again dodged the issue.
Of course, these are fair questions for people to ask. She will get these questions until she can come up with some narrative about the clinic that will satisfy the media. Obama had to deal with his church, his business dealings (Bachmann is co-owner of the clinic), his family, his birthplace, etc., etc., and so will she. When he didn’t answer questions, his opponents insinuated he had something to hide. None of this is strange or new. What is remarkable to me is that after three weeks she still has no coherent reply.
Category: reparative therapy
Bachmann keeps the ex-gay story alive
Why won’t Michele Bachmann discuss her counseling clinic?
Nearly three weeks after The Nation and Truth Wins Out published separate accounts of sexual orientation change efforts at their Minneapolis-area clinic, Bachmann continues to avoid media questions about the matter. As was demonstrated by her response to questions Sunday at a campaign event in Davenport, IA, her inability to handle the issue has allowed the story to live on.
Late yesterday, WQAD reported that they were snubbed by Bachmann over a prior interview during which a reporter asked about the Bachmann counseling center. Photojournalist Chuck McClurg said he was blocked from filming Bachmann speaking and was told “’due to the interview last week WQAD would not have an interview’” by the Bachmann campaign.
According to McClurg, a reporter from another station then raised questions about the Bachmann’s clinic. At that point, a campaign staffer took the microphone from the candidate, and “tossed it to the reporter,” ending the interview. Despite being promised an interview, Bachmann never emerged from her campaign bus. According to the WQAD report, McClurg said, I’ve been a photojournalist since 1988 and I have logged some 3,000 items. I’ve never been snubbed like I was (here) yesterday.”
Surely, the Bachmann campaign could find something to say about a clinic she once touted as an example of small business creating jobs. Initially, I thought the story might help her with socially conservative Iowa voters. However, now I think the issue serves to expose significant weaknesses in Bachmann as a candidate which the Obama campaign will easily exploit.
Obama will point to her indecision, her lack of transparency, and avoidance of public scrutiny. Never mind that such could also be said for the President. Heavy handed tactics might have worked for the Obama campaign in 2008, but they will alienate GOP voters in 2012. This issue should be a relatively easy one for Bachmann. Bachmann’s stonewalling leave her open to speculation that the clinic is engaged in unprofessional activities or worse. The issue lives on and she has mostly herself to blame for that.
I am scheduled to be on CNN Newsroom Sunday
I will be on CNN Newsroom Sunday at 8:30am (ET) 7/24 to talk about evangelicals and reparative therapy.
I believe the focus is going to be on the recent issues relating to Marcus Bachmann’s clinic, Exodus, and Mark Yarhouse’s research demonstrating no orientation change on average in mixed orientation marriages.
Al Mohler presents us with a conundrum
Rev. Al Mohler, who lately has been calling evangelicals to speak honestly about homosexuality, seemed to defend religiously based orientation change yesterday in a column on his website.
Much of what he writes about sin and redemption most evangelicals would agree with, but then he says this about Christians and same-sex desire.
Christians with same-sex sexual desires must know that these desires are sinful. Thus, faithful Christians who struggle with these desires must know that God both desires and commands that they desire what He wills for them to desire. All Christians struggle with their own pattern of sinful desires, sexual and otherwise. Our responsibility as Christians is to be obedient to Christ, knowing that only He can save us from ourselves.
Earlier in the column, Mohler said that “…those whose sexual orientation is homosexual face the fact that they also need a fundamental reordering of their sexual attractions.” Correct me if I am misreading him, but he appears to be arguing that orientation change is required for believers who are attracted to the same sex.
This appears to be at odds with Mohler’s statements that evangelicals have “lied about the nature of homosexuality” and that same-sex attractions is “not something that people can just turn on and turn off.”
I sense a problem.
Last Friday, I pointed to a study Mark Yarhouse’s team at Regent University in the Christian journal Edification which found no change in orientation on average for married gay and lesbian people. Behavior changed modestly, but same-sex orientation remained the same. Gary Welton and I are now writing up a report of a study that found same-sex attraction actually increased on average in a similar group of married GLB people. Religious affiliation is associated with a smaller increase in SSA but these changes could not be considered a “fundamental reordering of their sexual attractions.”
At this point, I can’t satisfactorily reconcile what counseling and study participants* are telling us with what Rev. Mohler teaches in this column. Perhaps we are dealing with semantics when it comes to defining what orientation is, or what “a fundamental reordering” looks like. When Rev. Mohler says that God commands that gays desire what He wills them to desire, that sounds a lot like turning desires on and off – in short choice. I hope he will address this in a future column. I feel sure that the emphasis on orientation in Mohler’s column will be discouraging to GLB men and women who have entered heterosexual marriage, but remain attracted to the same sex.
I suspect this will not be the only column on this matter, but for now I wanted to raise what looks like a conundrum for evangelicals raised by research and Mohler’s column.
*Here I refer to my recent study, Yarhouse’s report and the longitudinal study by Jones and Yarhouse. Even in that study of Exodus participants, reports of a “fundamental reordering of their sexual attractions” were infrequent. Even the small number of people who reported categorical changes reported ongoing SSA.
CNN Belief Blog examines congruence paradigm amid Bachmann revelations
On today’s CNN Belief Blog, Dan Gilgoff examines some changes in the evangelical world regarding reparative therapy in light of stories about Bachmann and Associates. Gilgoff contrasts the converstion or change paradigm with what I have called the congruence paradigm.
While many evangelicals once viewed conversion therapy as key way to deal with homosexuality, many of the religious movement’s leaders and organizations have cooled to the practice in recent years, as more science suggests that homosexuality may be innate and as new therapeutic approaches have emerged.
“Evangelicals, in quiet ways, are shifting to this position to where there is just not a lot of support for the change paradigm,” said Warren Throckmorton, an influential voice in the world of Christian counseling, referring to so-called change therapy.
Later in the piece, Exodus’ Alan Chambers weighs in, Al Mohler is referenced as is Marcus Yoars at Charisma and Jonathan Merritt at Christian Science Monitor. I like that the change paradigm is contrasted with the congruence paradigm.
Go give it a read and comment there and here…