NOM's Maggie Gallagher says Minnesota
Rep. Michele Bachmann's opposition to gay marriage will help her win
the Iowa caucuses.
Bachmann and former Pennsylvania
Senator Rick Santorum are the only 2012 presidential candidates to
have signed the Iowa-based Christian conservative group The Family
Leader's anti-gay marriage pledge.
The 14-point pledge also suggests that
being gay is a choice and a public health risk.
In addition, Michele Bachmann's
husband, Marcus, has denied claims that Bachmann & Associates,
the family's Christian counseling center mentioned by Mrs. Bachmann
as a job creator, seeks to “cure” gay people.
In
a story published Monday at POLITICO.com, gay activists say
Michele Bachmann's anti-gay rhetoric will derail her candidacy.
“We're going to be looking for
opportunities to get her record and her rhetoric out there,”
Michael Cole-Schwartz, the communications director for the Human
Rights Campaign (HRC), told the website.
Voters in both parties will view “any
candidates who espouse those kind of beliefs [as] living in the
Twilight Zone,” he added.
But Gallagher, the chair of the
National Organization for Marriage (NOM), the nation's most
vociferous opponent of gay marriage, warned that the attacks would
backfire.
“The more that they attack Michele
Bachmann on these grounds, the better her chances of winning the Iowa
caucuses are,” said Gallagher. “The Iowa base is extremely upset
about same-sex marriage and I don't think they're going to look
kindly on these attacks.”
(Related: Conservatives
defend Michele Bachmann's affiliation with “ex-gay” therapy.)