Taking a page out of the Truth Wins Out playbook, a documentary filmmaker went undercover at Bachmann & Associates, the Minnesota Christian counseling clinic co-owned by Marcus & Michele Bachmann, and again captured a staffer conducting so-called “reparative therapy,” this time with a hidden pen camera. This is the second time the clinic has been exposed for engaging in these dubious practices.
In June 2011, I went undercover at Bachmann & Associates with hidden cameras to capture the fraudulent “pray away the gay” therapy sessions I received there. The following month TWO launched the story into the media, catapulting the dangerous quackery of “ex-gay” therapy into the national conversation and presenting Michele Bachmann with the first major obstacle in her spectacularly unsuccessful bid for the presidency. Marcus Bachmann decided to bill me for $150 in bogus no-show fees, then personally called me nearly five months after TWO’s sting operation in an attempt to collect them. (He didn’t back down until December 2011, after TWO sent a cease-and-desist letter threatening legal action if he didn’t end the harassment.) While Marcus has inexplicably chosen to continue gleefully relitigating last year’s “pray away the gay” scandal that disgraced his business and turned him into a national punchline, you’d think he’d have learned his lesson and stopped offering “ex-gay therapy” at his clinics.
But apparently not. Writing on a blog affiliated with an upcoming film, Gay U.S.A., Melanie Nathan interviewed Kristina Lipinski, the activist who conducted this latest undercover operation. Lipinski, who told her counselor that she was attracted to women but engaged to a man, said that the counselor then pulled out a Bible and told her that God intended only men and women to come together. Lipinski continued:
She talked a lot about submitting to God, giving my life path over to him and letting him direct the way. She told me if I wanted to be happy I could “give my problems to the Lord and he could take them away.”
We ended the session with a prayer and Sheila J. Marker asked the lord to take away my “desire” and allow me to pursue a relationship with my fiancé.
According to Lipinski, she even admitted that she felt no attraction to her fiancée and, consequently, had not yet slept with him. The counselor responded, “how can you know how it will be until you try?”
So it would appear that Bachmann & Associates has disgraced itself once again. These people just don’t get it: you can’t pray away the gay. Their arrogance (or maybe it’s stupidity?) is astonishing.
Here is a blast from the past, filmed by the Associated Press on our Bachmann sting:
NOPE is right. erika has talked openly about her familys rejection of her being gay. she;s lucky her fam now accepts. this is the wrong fight erika and company. this is why films like these need to be made.
Since coming on this site and many others on line Erika Marker and other members of her family and friends she mustered up via Facebook have slandered attacked and bullied Kristina and me. We are making our movie GAY USA the Movie regardless of these attacks and this is but a tiny part of it. Erika I feel very sorry our work became the reason you exposed your family in this way. Since you attacked us we have had many many people contact us with information you have shared over the years which really does not make your childhood look pretty. Please do not come on to these internet pages again and interfere with our work and integrity if you do not have the truth behind you. I am promising not to reveal what I have heard in a follow up article, although it is tempting.
I do however invite you to come and be in the Movie GAY USA the Movie anytime you would like to talk about the “cure” therapy your parents put you through when you were you were young and how you reconciled your difficulties with your “accepting” mother. you can redeem this invitation by contacting me at melanie@gayusathemovie.com
and by the way if anyone would like to donate $50.00 to defray the expense of the consultation visit our website and help us get to North Carolina, our next stop! http://www.gayusathemovie.com and thanks to John, Wayne and Evan for hosting this spirited adventure….
I just want to know if anyone has the link to Michelle Bachmann’s latest statement where she blames this entire thing on President Obama. Can’t wait to see the spin on this one!
What? There isn’t one yet? Slackin’, Michy, slackin’!