This essay is being dictated on Sunday, the morning after the straw poll in Iowa was taken.  In the straw poll, Michele Bachmann and Ron Paul each finished with about 30% of the vote.  She was fractionally better than Ron Paul, so she claimed a victory.  Mind you, this is 30% of the vote in the Iowa straw poll.  It has no consequence on the ultimate decision on the presidency, but Ron Paul and Michele Bachmann had so many votes that Tim Pawlenty dropped out of the race.
Here is the point of the question.  Michele Bachmann appeared on five separate news programs on this Sunday morning.  On two of the programs that I happened to hear, she was asked the question having to do with the Biblical admonition that “wives should be submissive to their husbands.”  I suppose that the burden of the question is that if Michele was submissive to her husband, her husband in fact would be the President.
But Michele Bachmann turned the question on its head.  She said, “I respect my husband and he respects me.”  May I submit that even with my dubious credentials, I understand that “submission” is one word and “respect” is quite another.  The questioners on two of the programs did not ask Michele Bachmann if she was respected by her husband.  But that is the question she elected to answer and I am astounded to find that experienced announcers let her get away with it.  If Mrs. Bachmann is permitted to answer only the questions that she likes, we are in for a long campaign.  But here and now, I want to assure you that “respect” is a different word from “submission.”
Over the weekend when the Iowa straw poll was conducted, we were treated to the fact that Governor Rick Perry of Texas elected to enter the race.  Governor Perry is a contestant who will challenge Mrs. Bachmann for the far right religious vote.  Governor Perry has a reputation for being ruthless.  If Governor Perry is allowed to get away with answering his own questions, as was the case in the respect versus submission question to Mrs. Bachmann, we may be in for a long race and perhaps even an interesting one.
As most of you know, I am a non-believer in organized religion and I do not put much faith in Biblical quotations.  But this morning two experienced questioners permitted Michele Bachmann to answer her own question.  I can only say, “Gentlemen, we will have to do a lot better than letting the questioner answer his own question.”  Whether Mr. Bachmann has respect for Mrs. Bachmann is a question that I will not touch.
Now that Mr. Bachmann has entered the discussion, it will be interesting if questioners in the future will ask Mrs. Bachmann about her husband’s belief in “reparative therapy.”  Under this doctrine, a person who is gay undergoes treatment for reparative therapy with an ample amount of prayer.  According to the doctrine of reparative therapy, a gay person can become a full-fledged heterosexual person.
I have been acquainted over the years with a number of people who identify themselves as gay.  It is my belief that no matter how much praying may be conducted, in the end the gay person will still be a gay person.  And I have absolutely no trouble with that concept.  When he escaped from the womb, I assume that he was a gay person.  Nobody, to my knowledge, has ever made himself into a gay person.
I am a right-handed thrower.  In my early days, I wished that I could become a left-hander.  But that was not to be the case.  It turns out, also, that I am bald and, if the truth were to be told, I am also blind.  These things were foreordained.  There is no amount of a prayer therapy program that would turn me into a left-hander, would make hair grow on my head, and/or would make me sighted.  What the questioners had in mind were stories about Mrs. Bachmann becoming submissive to her husband with her husband holding these very strange views.  That is totally a question that Mrs. Bachmann should answer.  But Mrs. Bachmann would have none of it.
As I have said, over the weekend Rick Perry, the Governor of Texas, entered the race and he will contest with Mrs. Bachmann for the far-out religious right vote.
I simply hope that the questioners on television will hold him and Mrs. Bachmann accountable for answering the questions of the interviewer, not for answering their own thoughts.
Well, these are my thoughts after unfortunately running into Mrs. Bachmann on two of the programs which she appeared on this Sunday morning.  At the Iowa State Fair where she is now appearing, there is a confection called “fried butter.”  It may be that fried butter is eaten by the questioners of Mrs. Bachmann, which permitted her to get away with answering her own questions.  In any event, it is my fervent hope that during the campaign Mrs. Bachmann and Governor Perry will answer the questions that are asked of them.  In Mrs. Bachmann’s case, she turned around the quotation from the Bible about being submissive.  It would seem to me that this is disrespectful of the teachings of the Bible.  I would hope that she will be better in the future but I am quite aware that this is not in the cards.
 
E. E. CARR
August 21, 2011
Essay 573
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Kevin’s commentary: Hey, I just published an essay about reparative therapy. It was called “the Power of Prayer” and constituted the 174th essay that I have pusblished to this website. For those counting, that makes this particular essay number 175.  At number 185 I will be approximately one-quarter of the way through Ezra’s Essays as they stand today.
Onto the subject matter at hand, I think that any attempts to pray away the gay are generally doomed to fail but I realize that most readers of these essays are likely to already be of that opinion.
Using my knowledge of the past year that Pop was not privy to as of August of 2011 I can say with relative confidence that Bachmann became irrelevant before she was forced to address the issue of reparative therapy. Whether this was ultimately a good or bad thing I cannot say. Unfortunately she did go on to (narrowly) win re-election in her home state, so I guess people aren’t entirely as sick of her as they probably ought to be.