Presidential hopeful and Minnesota Representative Michele Bachmann and her husband, Marcus Bachmann, have previously endorsed “pray away the gay” therapy.

The Bachmanns, married 30 years, publicly object to giving gay and lesbian couples the right to marry.

But a recently surfaced audio recording from 2010 of Marcus Bachmann calling gay people “barbarians” has thrown the couple's anti-gay views into the headlines.

“We have to understand: barbarians [gay people] need to be educated,” he said during an appearance on the Point of View radio talk show. “They need to be disciplined. Just because someone feels it or thinks it doesn’t mean that we are supposed to go down that road. That’s what is called the sinful nature. We have a responsibility as parents and as authority figures not to encourage such thoughts and feelings from moving into the action steps.”

“And let's face it: what is our culture, what is our public education system doing today? They are giving full, wide-open doors to children, not only giving encouragement to think it but to encourage action steps. That's why when we understand what truly is the percentage of homosexuals in this country, it is small. But by these open doors, I can see and we are experiencing, that it is starting to increase.”

A Washington Post profile published Tuesday revealed the couple also supports so called “reparative therapy,” which attempts to alter the sexual orientation of gay men and lesbians.

Marcus Bachmann has denied reports that his Christian counseling center has dabbled in “reparative therapy,” but in 2005 he delivered a presentation at the Grace Church in Eden Prairie titled The Truth About the Homosexual Agenda during which he “introduced three people as 'former homosexuals' as proof that sexual orientation is a choice.”

The progressive blog ThinkProgress.org adds that in 2004 then-Minnesota State Senator Michele Bachmann, who had previously sponsored a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage, welcomed a Love Won Out conference in Minneapolis. Love Won Out believes that the sexual orientation of gay people can – and should – be altered through prayer.

“I know that Love Won Out will present the truth about homosexuality,” Michele Bachmann was quoted as saying in a Love Won Out press release, “and present it in a compassionate and loving manner. Those of us working to safeguard marriage from redefinition by radical judges must inform our efforts with an understanding of the deep emotional wounds that many in the homosexual community carry. I look forward to welcoming Minnesotans and residents of surrounding states to hear the message of healing that is possible.”