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:
Wait wait wait, was that a Christian counselor telling her client to commit fornication before marriage?
Exactly what Sera W. said ^
Any competent therapist would have helped her figure out her feelings before she married anyone
@ Sera W.
It sure looks like it!
Maybe God’s ok with sex before a loveless marriage?
Nah, I’m betting God is a lot smarter than that.
Yes, Alex, She is.
Maybe living in “loveless” phony marriages works for them but most of us who believe in living authentic lives believe that “Family Values” means creating families where all are loved and valued. The Bachmann’s and those who ascribe to their narrow way of thinking can no longer claim marriage is sacred when it’s clear they see is a nothing more than something to be done for appearances only………certainly explains alot about the Bachmann’s if you ask me.
My good friend who was subjected to ex-gay therapy as a teen was also told to “treat” his “problem” by sleeping with a girl. These silly “counselors!”
yeah i was told by a counselor to do the same sleep with a women..yeah like that going to cure me
It wasn’t by an ex-gay counselor, but a few teachers back in the Midwest tried saying the same thing to me, sleep with a woman.
This was even funnier because I was pre-transition, appearing to be male, but otherwise, they were telling a (secretly) lesbian to sleep with women. Sure, why not?
(Which also never happened because I hated being perceived male just that damn much that I never got to that point with anyone until after transition. Point still stands.)
How does this ‘clinic’ get public funding?!!! They need to be shut down!
Thanks to TWO for paving the way and for running this article. Just to clear something up which others have also misinterpreted. The footage will show and Kristina also believes that at no time did we think the therapist was suggesting premarital sex. Quite the contrary. Her suggestion to “try it” we believe was in the context of the impending marriage…. melanie nathan
And how much did the anti-gay, I mean “ex-gay” practice charge her for this “session?” She could’ve gotten the same thing for free at any pro-homophobia “church.”
How sweet it is!
Jerry
God does not like premarital sex. So just go for it and never get married. Then logically sex was not premarital as marriage never occurred. Seems legit.
More lies from John Becker.
Why don’t you post all the video to Youtube John Becker? You said that you gave all of this video to the media. So why not give the same to the public? You can post many many hours of video on Youtube. So please post all your secret agent video so we can see how you trapped your doctor by telling lies! Your group is called Truth Wins Out, but you and Wayne Besen are very careful not to let the “truth” come “out” about this or about the legal response of Quinlan.
Oh, good god, it’s the resident troll-under-the-bridge Charles B.
Charlie, rather that directly responding to your latest rant, might I suggest you read the following:
http://www.livescience.com/18132-intelligence-social-conservatism-racism.html
http://prospect.org/article/my-so-called-ex-gay-life
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/04/120406234458.htm
http://pamshouseblend.firedoglake.com/2012/04/10/the-endless-anti-gay-lies-of-the-national-organization-for-marriages-maggie-gallaghers/
Then take one long, hard look at yourself in the mirror, and ask yourself who are greater liars in this grand debate?
I think if you are being honest with yourself, you will acknowledge that it is Christianist fundamentalists who are willing to say anything, do anything, and tell any amount of lies in order to acheive their goals.
You are on the wrong (in every sense of the word) side, Chuck.
Now, go away.
I was just going to advise everyone that Charles B. is a troll, but Peter beat me to it.
Charlie, we’ve been over this before: TWO has *NOTHING* to hide. If we had, this story would *NEVER* have gotten the traction it did, would never have been published by every reputable media outlet in the country. Do you *really* think ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, MSNBC, the Associated Press, the New York Times, etc. are engaging with TWO in some kind of massive media-wide conspiracy to hide the full tapes? Give me a break. Then crawl back under your bridge.
Charlie Charlie Charlie..you just don’t get it, do you? I guess you don’t want to get it and that is causing your blockage. Try an ex-lax. In the meantime, let me see if I can help you out a little with this. Mr Becker was doing an UNDERCOVER INVESTIGATION. He wasn’t there because he thought the therapy would HELP HIM. He was there to expose those practices for what they are–hurtful nonsense! He was playing a part, much like an actor does in those moving picture shows they make or maybe even some members of your church who pretend to be Christians.
I’m sure if you’d just try to think for yourself for one minute, you might just realize how silly your comment was. But like the old song says “there is none so blind as he who WILL NOT see!”
God hates bigots! I know because He told me so when He said to love my neighbor as much as I love myself. If you are following that rule then maybe a little therapy would benefit you as you are obviously in need of some self-love and acceptance. And I don’t mean that in a ‘dirty’ way either unless you think that would help you. In that case, go for it!
Charles, do you have any non-religious educational credentials and/or other accomplishments that might give you some elevated status in our society? Or did you just latch onto fanatical religion for its attractive ability to provide you with instant delusions of superiority and instant elevated status among a select group of like-minded gullible people? Are you just one of the truly gullible fearful followers, or do you fancy yourself as potentially one of the clever charismatic leaders who figured out that he could use religion, with its convenient fear-factor, as a means for gaining even higher status, power, and/or money? That’s pretty much the story of how religions gain traction, isn’t it?
Charles…you gonna be an adult, and a person of integrity and admit you were wrong about the lawsuit? you know…the one you said God would not allow to be filed? :)
You will have a TINY (itty bitty) bit of ‘clout’ if you are adult enough to do that
TILL THEN, we will ALL continue to point out you are a
1) joke
2) lowly fundmentalist
3) need to get a real Christian (and appearantly also secular) education.
But mainly, a funny little troll on the site who does not realize he is mainly a source of humor since he has been shown to be wrong OVER, and OVER and OVER :)
Chaz, will your Marryamantha ‘True’ church let me marry a man?
And why can’t you accept that some people don’t want to be gay and forcing them to be is not the answer. Live your life and let others live their lives
Hannah, and why can’t YOU accept that although some people don’t want to be gay, offering them a “cure” that doesn’t work for a “disease” that doesn’t exist in order to make them feel good about something they have no control over in order to in satisfy people whose lives and are not at stake in the matter?
As you say, but apparently NOT to the antigay industry out there, live your life and let others live their lives.
thank you Ben, I was just going to say that.
hannah, as you know, hating yourself because you’re gay is the exact same thing as hating yourself because you’re black: it’s crazy and it’s nothing more than an irrational reaction to society’s bigotry. People are born gay, but nobody is born hating themselves. They have to be taught that.
Here’s an idea: if you care so much about people being forced to do something, why don’t you work to undo the bigotry that forces some people to hate themselves so much that they’re willing to believe any lie to solve a problem they don’t have in the first place?
I am gay and my mother (Sheila Marker) loves and accepts me. My girlfriend and I went to Easter dinner with my family at my parents house. I am upset that you would try to portray a wonderful woman like my mother in this way. She is a CHRISTIAN counselor. Of course she is going to tell you to pray not to mention, Christians believe that giving the lord your problems is the thing to do with ANY problem, not just your sexual desires. furthermore, as a marriage counselor, of course she is not going to encourage your “desires” for people other than your fiance, whether it is for women or men. she is going to encourage you to stay true to your commitment. I know my mother and am positive that she was encouraging the woman in accordance to the her self proclaimed desire “to start a family and please society and my religious community.” to a man that she claims is “my best friend, my buddy.”
This sort of Slander of a wonderful woman is not helping out the cause, a cause that i am very much involved in and am passionate about. Not to mention, you really can’t paint her as an enemy if she is supportive of me and my relationship. Her goal is to help people live in happy, loving, committed relationships. Not encourage people cheat on their fiances and spouses.
Yeah, a “therapist” constantly telling their patients (read: victims) that they are broken and that they need to hate themselves will certainly make them feel better. It’s a positive feedback loop. Christian culture and the “therapist” tells them they are bad and need to be fixed, which causes further depression, which then keeps the patient going to the “therapist” because the cure is elusive and things just keep getting worse.
Steve, it sounds like you have some issues. I can promise you that my mother never once said anything of that nature.
No Erika, she just told a vulnerable woman to live a lie and set herself up for misery later. No one is “slandering” the bigot you call your mother. We’re just reporting her fraudulant and completely unethical medical practices.
It’s highly doubtful that Erika is even her daughter. Anyone can lie on the internet
Erika, why is your lesbian supporting mother working for the likes of Marcus Bachmann, who is clearly opposed to the acceptance of GLBT people as healthy, contributing and coequal members of society?
RainbowPhoenix you really don’t know what was said. there is not any real dialogue from their conversation. There is a lot of implication and innuendo, but no smoking gun. Christians preay about anything and everything so it is not out of place that she would tell her to do that. suppressing sexual desires is common place in the religion, whether it opposite or same sex. all sexual desires are suppressed unless people are married.You can call monogamy/chastity and the religious suppression of sexual desire unhealthy if you like (and I certainly do), but it’s how millions of people live and is central to their value systems, and to shame them for living according to their beliefs is just as narrow-minded and hateful as those who shun gays.
Paul Douglas, do you work for someone who shares ALL of your beliefs? if so, congratulations because I am pretty sure you are the only one.
We saw the dialogue Erika. We are also very familiar with the lies and shaming bigots like your mother use.
No one is shaming you for the way you live your lives. We are shaming you for trying to control other people’s lives. I have had it with people like you trying to manipulate and control everyone and everything around you, then screaming persecution at the top of your lungs when someone dares to tell you to mind your own business. You are not the victim. You are the attacker and you have no right to feel put upon when people defend themselves from your attacks. You have no right to dictate my life. You have no right to shame me for living a life different from yours. You have no right to claim victimhood when I tell you that my life is not yours to dictate. You have no right to lie about what you are being called out on. So kindly retreat back under bridge and let us live our lives like you claim to want to.
where did you see this dialogue? certainly not this article that does not have any of their conversation on it. and you know nothing about me or my mother. if you did, you would not call her a bigot nor attack my integrity. I am not trying to control anything, I am simply defending my mother’s honor. how does that make me a bad person? now I don’t know about you but this is my business, it is my mother and it affects me very directly, so why don’t you mind your own business and stop judging someone based on a snippet of someone else’s story which has not been anything except for circumstantial claims. you don’t have any idea how the conversation went. but i have all the knowledge in the world about my mother’s character. I never claimed to be the victim, are you claiming you are one? I have to suffer persecution because of my sexuality on a daily basis. all I am saying is my mother is not a source of that. she is not a bigot and certainly has nothing against gay people.
You’re right Erika, chances are very slim that anyone works with people who share ALL the same beliefs. But with all due respect, there is a fine line. We’re not debating a vegan working in the cubicle next to someone who eats meat. The Bachmanns have been very vocal about their opinions on being gay. You must admit that it is not that large a leap to assume any counselor in his clinic would share the same views, since it is his clinic. So, rightly or wrongly, it is also not that large a leap to assume a counselor who did not share those views would look elsewhere. My interest would be, what would the advice have been if the “impending marriage” had been taken out of the equation?
I sought counseling on my own, at the age of 16 (in the 70s) when I was conflicted. When I told her in our first meeting why I was there, and what could I do about it, and how could it be fixed, her reply was:
“We’re not going to be fixing anything. We are going to figure out together who you are, and then how to be comfortable with it.” And again, this was in the 70s. If not for her guidance, my story could have been as traumatic as any ex-gay survivor.
But even if prayer had been the prescription, I feel confident her option would have been to pray for understanding of who I am, not how to be who I’m not. There is a difference.
Yes I can and am calling your alleged mother a bigot because she was caught on tape attempting to “fix” a gay person. And in light of that it is very reasonable to call your integrity into question. You are not defending your mother’s honor, you’re defending her attempts to shame someone into a life of misery and lies. By defending your mother’s attempts to control people who are different from her, you are party to that. This is also our business because your alleged mother has made it clear that she thinks we need to be “fixed” and forced into shams for that purpose. Do you realize how many of us have directly experienced the “therapy” your alleged mother was caught performing? We know exactly how it goes. You have also done nothing but attempt to paint your alleged mother as the victim because she was called out for commiting fraudulent medical practices. I won’t comment on what amount of persecution you may or may not experience, but your mother is a direct contributor to it beyond any doubt. If your alleged mother didn’t have anything against gay people, she wouldn’t be trying to “fix” us by destroying our lives.
where are you getting “fix” from and where is this tape? if my mother is a bigot than you are also. hating someone because they are a christian is no different than hating someone because they are gay. she does not try to “fix” gay people, if she really felt that way don’t you think she would be sure to “fix” me? you are so sull of presumptions and anger. I have been the target of people trying to “cure” my gayness, trying to cast the “evils demons” of homosexuality out of me. you think you are so different from me, but i am guessing we have a lot more in common than either one of us are willing to admit. people hear what they want to though and I am sure you just keep on hearing how different and/or horrible I am.
AGAIN, I ASK YOU, WHERE IS THIS TAPE WHERE I OR ANYONE FOR THAT MATTER CAN LISTEN TO THEIR CONVERSATION???
“She told me if I wanted to be happy I could “give my problems to the Lord and he could take them away.”
There it is Erika. That is an attempt to “fix” a gay person. And again, no one is attacking your alleged mother for being christian. She is being called out for trying to force others to live according to her religion. I am so sick of you people throwing out that argument. Being told to mind your own business is not an attack on your religion. This is exactly what’s wrong with you people. It’s not enough to just live your own life according to your own beliefs. You need to force everyone else to live according to your beliefs too. Damn their beliefs. You have a God-given right to dictate morality to everyone else. Then you immediately start screaming about how you’re being attacked because someone dared to tell you that they’re going to live by their own beliefs instead of yours. I am not “presuming” anything. I’m just looking at history and the evidence in front of me. As for being angry, of course I am. People should get angry when they’re told that they need to be fixed and that they need to lie to themselves and everyone around them. If you really have experienced with people attempting to “cure” you, then it’s extremely worrying that you can’t see the evidence of your alleged mother doing that to others when it’s right in front of you. I also know one very big thing that makes me different from you. I don’t let the people claiming to be my family get away with attacking me or people like me this way. But you are right about some people hearing what they want to hear. That’s why you refuse to hear the evidence right in front of you that the woman you claim is your mother is attempting to “fix” people like you.
I find it fascinating that Erika says she has had Ex-GAY therapy. Erika was that on your mother’s watch before you were 18? If so how could she allow that to happen to you? AND if not on your mother;’s watch that is after you were 18 what would make you want to do that to yourself. I think you have opened a can of worms by coming on this site and every other from Advocate to HUFFPO trying to demonize Kristina and GAY USA for doing our job to expose the Bachmann clinic for our film.You have inserted your family into something that no one would have noticed. You have also brought Kristina and my integrity into question. We did our job and that was to go undercover and do what we did. You have caused your mother so much harm by saying here on TWO that you had ex-gay therapy….. unless you can prove you were over 18 and your mom had no involvement.
This is why the government needs to defund Bachmann & Associates.
http://www.change.org/petitions/defund-bachmann-associates
Sign today!
Erika is not one to talk. People in the small lesbian community know her and how she gets when alcohol is involved. Which I am sure her family’s religious based homophobic beliefs had no part in. Its sad this so called therapist can’t see the harm her homophobic beliefs cause to those right in front of her, in her own family.
Yes, Erika being gay is hard, but you are not a victim and neither is your mother. I understand your desire to protect a loved one but this is the wrong fight to engage in.
Your mother’s actions and your subsequent comments only show how troubled you both are and confused.
The sentiments espoused by your mother are hurtful and can cause true damage.
How was the experience at an ex-gay camp your parents sent you to?
Did you view that experience as a loving action a parent should subject their own child to?
Would you do that to your own child?
Instead of commenting on numerous websites why not talk to your mother or have your mother talk to some of your friends who are gay and let them tell her about the pain and shame the results from using religion to deny a loved one’s being; that is the true crime here of which your mother is guilty.
It’s hard enough to deal with unwanted sexual feelings , why do you have to hate us? Why can’t you let us live in peace.
DAMN!! all this back and forth!
Why aren’t you releasing the “tapes” or whatever it is that you have? if it is how you say, all it will do is help us and make this chick shut up.
NOPE. you make the case of talking in person… You obviously know Erika well enough to have an opinion so why be a coward? why are you on here posting anonymously? maybe you should have a conversation with her and her mom? just a thought.
And hannah, it’s hard enough to deal with being gay in a hostile world. Why do the anti-gays have to hate us, lie about us, disparage us, denigrate us, to everything they can to make our lives as difficult and unpleasant as possible?
Why can’t you just let us live in peace?
Hannah, if you left us alone, none of us would give you a second thought. But since you are determined to drag us into the same pit of loneliness and misery you inhabit, we have a moral obligation to fight back.
Now hannah’s whining about how hated she is on a comment thread where she comes to talk about how awful it is to be one of us?
This has to be a parody. That’s the only plausible explanation.
Hannah said “It’s hard enough to deal with unwanted sexual feelings , why do you have to hate us? Why can’t you let us live in peace.”.
Hannah, you sought out this site to spread your anti-gay feelings. If you hadn’t gone out of your way to push your hatred on other’s you’d be living in peace. You came here begging to be criticized, don’t b***h about it now that the inevitable has happened. How about leaving in peace those who are happy with their sexuality? We didn’t invite you here or force you to come here, it is you who’s disturbing the peace, not us.
Who cares about hannah, I want to know when these “tapes” are being released and how to get a hold of them!