Michele Bachmann: Gays Are “Bullying” The American People

michele-bachmann-tea-bag

Soon to be former Congresswoman Michele Bachmann says that gays and lesbians are bullying people:

Speaking to conservative host Lars Larson during last week’s CPAC event in Maryland, Bachmann said it’s been getting “tiresome” that the gay community have “so bullied the American people and they have so intimidated politicians that politicians fear them and they think they get to dictate the agenda everywhere.” She added, “Well, not with the Constitution you don’t.”

“If you want take away my religious liberties,” she continued, “you can advocate for that but you do it through the constitutional process and you don’t intimidate and no politician should give away my religious liberties or yours.” She lumped the LGBT community in with “activist” judges and the “lawless” President Barack Obama as all trying to bypass and ignore the U.S. Constitution.

Bachmann’s position is one that I’ve found to be fairly prevalent among social conservatives, who quite obviously are coming to realize that they have lost the battle against marriage equality specifically and the increased acceptance of gay men and lesbians in general. On some level, it’s really quite laughable that people who compromise the majority have become butthurt simply because one group of people is, horror of horrors, asking to be treated equally and with dignity and respect. 

I mean, really, if you don’t have the right to call them faggots then obviously we’re just one step away from Naziism.

FILED UNDER: US Politics, , , , ,
Doug Mataconis
About Doug Mataconis
Doug Mataconis held a B.A. in Political Science from Rutgers University and J.D. from George Mason University School of Law. He joined the staff of OTB in May 2010 and contributed a staggering 16,483 posts before his retirement in January 2020. He passed far too young in July 2021.

Comments

  1. greg says:

    Bachmann’s position is one that I’ve found to be fairy prevalent among social …

    Freudian slip ?… but very appropriate anyway 😉

  2. @greg:

    Heh. Yea that was just a typo but probably appropriate

  3. Gustopher says:

    Once again, the bisexuals are ignored — we really are a completely overlooked group, to the point where crazy bigots forget to hate us.

    Bisexuals are bullying the American people too!

  4. Mark Ivey says:

    Fear of militarized homosexuality WooT 🙂

  5. ernieyeball says:

    Gay’s are Bullying American Citizens?
    Well BOO HOO HOO Michele Bachman you poor victim you..
    In the meantime heterosexuals are MURDERING people for being Gay.
    http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/wp/2013/05/20/being-gay-can-still-get-you-killed/
    She is such a slug…

  6. C. Clavin says:

    Seriously though…
    This religious liberty argument is being used as a cudgel to beat down natural rights and civic obligations…and is truly dangerous. Should SCOTUS decide in favor of Hobby Lobby and give corporations religious freedom the implications will be huge. Imagine the Koch’s using religious liberty to circumvent laws they don’t like. It’ll make the abomination that is Citizens United seem inconsequential.

  7. rudderpedals says:

    Why can’t the congresswoman cite to something? An event, seizure, some change or failure to act that caused damages. Like a coat peg, to hang your hat on. A secular state should demand more than present metaphysical offense and mere speculation of future damages to trump another’s fundamental right to marry.

  8. legion says:

    I mean, really, if you don’t have the right to call them faggots then obviously we’re just one step away from Naziism.

    I realize you mean this as a joke, Doug, but pretty much _all_ self-described social conservatives these days – certainly all in the Republican Party – actually believe this. They can’t feel good about themselves unless they’re actively persecuting someone else, and if they’re prevented from persecuting others, they see _that_ as persecution themselves. They’re genuinely dangerous people.

  9. Tillman says:

    Dudes, she’s playing to an audience. An utterly ignorant audience that doesn’t understand how the Constitution works, or what the word “bullying” means. An audience that perceived itself as the norm, and now that that worldview is falling apart, sees itself as threatened in a strange new worldview of multiple permitted yet abominable (but socially acceptable) associations.

    These people think there were righteous dudes in Sodom & Gomorrah who got nuked by God for just living there and not speaking up about all the sodomy. Obviously, they haven’t actually read the Bible or they’d know God saved the righteous except for Lot’s wife who was idiotic enough to look back at all the damnation. The lesson they should take from this sociological debasement they feel is, “If God isn’t telling you to get the hell out of Dodge, just don’t bother looking.”

  10. Tillman says:

    @rudderpedals: I respect the state that respects its citizens’ metaphysical issues. I don’t respect the state that gives money and resources to solve them. That’s taking money away from university philosophy departments.

  11. rudderpedals says:

    @Tillman: I invited that by claiming one’s own civil and moral rights to marry trumps Bachmann’s metaphysical damage because you have to go through philosophy to get to morals. You’re right.

  12. @legion:

    I mean, really, if you don’t have the right to call them faggots then obviously we’re just one step away from Naziism.

    I realize you mean this as a joke, Doug, but pretty much _all_ self-described social conservatives these days – certainly all in the Republican Party – actually believe this.

    In fact, a lot of them literally believe it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pink_Swastika

  13. An Interested Party says:

    This reminds me of what is talked about in this video…how some people seem to have the warped view that homophobia is discriminatory to homophobes themselves rather than to gay people…

  14. argon says:

    Oh, that’s a tea bag she’s holding. Phew.

  15. Tillman says:

    @this: Did, did someone just downvote university philosophy departments?!

  16. Mikey says:

    @Tillman:

    Did, did someone just downvote university philosophy departments?!

    Must have been a STEM major.

  17. al-Ameda says:

    Maybe her husband can do something about that bullying problem?

  18. gVOR08 says:

    George Lakoff pretty much nailed this in Whose Freedom. He argues that conservatives define “freedom” differently than liberals; which is to say they define it differently than Webster. To a conservative, freedom is being allowed to do his duty as he sees it. And part of his duty is to make you do your duty. As he sees it. If he sees suppression of homosexuality as part of his duty, then he does see it as a loss of “religious liberty” if he is prevented from doing so.

    I try (and fail) to explain to conservatives that liberal is not the opposite of conservative, that it’s a different thing than conservative. The converse is also true. Conservatives are not looking at the facts and failing to reach a correct conclusion. They are starting from completely different premises and follow a different mode of thinking. To go back to Lakoff, they think in terms of direct causation, not complex causation. “Gay is evil” is sufficient for Bachmann.

    It’s necessary to take an attitude that we are not interfering with their ability to believe and behave as they wish, as long as they don’t interfere with others. But don’t expect them to see it that way.

  19. anjin-san says:

    I’m afraid to leave the house. Roving gangs of gay thugs might force me to mousse my hair and trade my Berkeley sweatshirt for a cardigan…

  20. KM says:

    @gVOR08:

    George Lakoff pretty much nailed this in Whose Freedom. He argues that conservatives define “freedom” differently than liberals; which is to say they define it differently than Webster. To a conservative, freedom is being allowed to do his duty as he sees it.

    This explains the weird “selfish” accusations that get thrown around whenever a socon talks about anything even vaguely sexual (selfish women want abortion, selfish gays want to redefine marriage, selfish women choosing a career over motherhood, etc). If you’re not in it for them and their way of thinking, you’re in it for you. And apparently that’s a bad thing. For aspiring rugged individualists, that’s rather herd-like. I wonder what they hear when someone says “Land of the Free”?

  21. al-Ameda says:

    @anjin-san:

    I’m afraid to leave the house. Roving gangs of gay thugs might force me to mousse my hair and trade my Berkeley sweatshirt for a cardigan…

    My wife and are disconsolate and depressed, and our girls are wondering how it went down so quickly – they’ve ruined our marriage, 32 good years, now it’s over.

  22. Tillman says:

    @KM:

    This explains the weird “selfish” accusations that get thrown around whenever a socon talks about anything even vaguely sexual (selfish women want abortion, selfish gays want to redefine marriage, selfish women choosing a career over motherhood, etc). If you’re not in it for them and their way of thinking, you’re in it for you. And apparently that’s a bad thing. For aspiring rugged individualists, that’s rather herd-like

    It’s strangely communitarian of them. Well, I say “strangely,” but it’s perfectly understandable. They want a world of rugged individualists who nonetheless adhere to specific cultural norms.

  23. gVOR08 says:

    @KM:

    I wonder what they hear when someone says “Land of the Free”?

    I suspect they hear that the constitution in their heads says this is a Christian nation and by God they’re going to make it so.

    Lakoff mostly talks about framing the world through a “strict father” or “nurturant parent” model. Conservatives, of course, tend toward the former. Part of that model is a “natural order”. In the family: daddy, mommy, child. Elsewhere, white males on top. (Take that as you wish.)

    Of course a lot of this also revolves around religion, as does the selfish thing. Women are for procreation. If God wants you to host a fertilized egg with a soul, who are you, slut, to deny God?

  24. Mikey says:

    @gVOR08:

    If God wants you to host a fertilized egg

    Hmmm…host.

  25. After centuries of her and her ancestors wielding the (alleged) “good”book as a murder weapon, Rep Bachmann has balls the size of church bells to be going on about bullying. She is simply upset because her institutional hit-men have all fled, last seen in Texas a couple weeks ago now. She asks permission to continue her mean-spirited busy-body campaign.

    On the plus side, fewer are in enrolled in this nonsense, and by the hour.

  26. gVOR08 says:

    @Mikey:

    Hmmm…host.

    One of the holy rollers caught some stuff a few days ago for using that word. Did seem to exemplify their attitude.

  27. J-Dub says:

    @anjin-san: No, you can keep the Berkely sweatshirt.