Networks Reporting On Michelle & Marcus Gay Reparative Clinic

By Catalina Camia, USA TODAY

The spotlight is on a clinic run by GOP presidential candidate Michele Bachmann's husband, which reportedly tried to counsel two gay, former patients that prayer would cure them of their sexual orientation.

ABC News reported Monday on the controversial therapy used by Bachmann & Associates, a Christian-based counseling clinic run by Marcus Bachmann, on Monday night. The clinic is co-owned by the Minnesota congresswoman.

 

By Steve Pope, Getty Images

The "path for my therapy would be to read the Bible, pray to God that I would no longer be gay," Andrew Ramirez told ABC News, who went to the clinic as a high school student in 2004. "And God would forgive me if I were straight."

Ramirez's story was first reported by The Nation last week. The ABC story included secretly taped video by a gay activist posing as a patient.

Marcus Bachmann has denied that he uses religious- and prayer-based counseling to rid patients of their sexual orientation. Bachmann's campaign did not comment directly about Ramirez or the clinic's therapy to ABC News, citing patient confidentiality.

John Becker, a gay activist with a group called Truth Wins Out, took two hidden cameras to treatment sessions at the Bachmann clinic in Lake Elmo, Minn. Becker said he posed as someone seeking counseling for homosexuality.

"Based on my experiences at Bachmann & Associates, there can no longer be any doubt that Marcus Bachmann's state- and federally-funded clinic endorses and practices reparative therapy aimed at changing a gay person's sexual orientation, despite the fact that such 'therapy' is widely discredited by the scientific and medical communities," Becker wrote on Truth Wins Out's website.