The “pray away the gay” therapy
promoted by Michele Bachmann and her husband Marcus Bachmann has been
called “horrific” by a former “ex-gay” leader.
Earlier
this month, John Smid, the former leader of the “ex-gay”
ministry Love in Action, renounced his long-held belief that being
gay is a choice and admitted that despite 20 years of marriage to a
woman he is gay.
During an appearance on MSNBC's
Hardball, Smid said the government “shouldn't have gotten
involved in the issue of marriage.”
“I think two gay people should have
the same rights as two heterosexual people,” he said.
On the issue of the Bachmanns, host
Chris Matthews asked, “What do you make of the fact that one of the
candidates for the Republican side, Michele Bachmann, and her husband
run an organization which basically does what you say can't be done –
change people,” then played a 2010 clip of Mr. Bachmann in which he
is heard likening gay people to “barbarians” who “need to be
educated” and “disciplined.”
“Oh, I think that's horrific,” Smid
said of Mr. Bachmann's remarks. “I think that whole concept that
he has talked about there is an amazing denial of human experience
and I think the first thing we need to do is to listen and validate
to what people experience.” (The video is embedded in the right
panel of this page.)