BACHMANN AND GAY RIGHTS, CTD: This thread used to be called 'Bachmann and marriage equality,' but I hardly feel that properly encompasses the scope with which the Bachmann family professes profound animosity towards the idea of homosexuality. Now, in an investigation on ABC's Nightline, the Bachmann stance has been exposed, for lack of a better word, in its dealings with gays through a family-owned clinic operated by Bachmann's husband. Absolutely repugnant. I think this blogger sums it up rather nicely: "If Michele Bachmann doesn’t outright disgust you after this, well, there’s no hope for you." Agreed.

THE GAY-CURING THEOCRAT: Alex Pareene explores in Salon how Bachmann's conservative ideology may be even more extreme than we originally thought. "This is the beyond-the-pale stuff that makes Bachmann so, so much worse than Sarah Palin, to whom she is regularly compared." My sentiments exactly. "She is, really, a pretty awful piece of work."
It's concerning, to say the very least, that someone being taken so seriously within the presidential race (you should note that she overtook Mitt Romney as the frontrunner in Iowa) could err so blatantly on the far right; a right often condemned for it's unabashed bigotry and boundless capacity for refusal in accepting others.

TIM PAWLENTY AND GAY RIGHTS: Likes Lady Gaga, but disagrees with her.

QUOTE OF THE DAY II: "There’s no scientific conclusion that it’s genetic. We don’t know that. But as I understand the science, there’s no current conclusion that it’s genetic.” -- Tim Pawlenty. Jonathan Capehart rebuts, "And if Pawlenty actually talked to and listened to gay people, he’d be hard-pressed to find one who’d say they woke up one day and chose to be gay."