Bachmann 'Submissive' Question Ignites Debate Over Marriage, Sexism

WASHINGTON — She’s beaming, wild-eyed, from the cover of Newsweek magazine. Her extreme religious views are outlined in a lengthy piece in the New Yorker. And she’s wooing evangelical Christian leaders to her unexpectedly surging run for president.


The Michele Bachmann juggernaut is showing no signs of subsiding as the Minnesota congresswoman is racing neck and neck with Mitt Romney as the Republican presidential frontrunner despite her far-right views on homosexuality and other social issues.


Bachmann courted the Christian vote in Iowa recently, according to NBC, attending a church service during which the pastor called homosexuality "immoral" and "unnatural." The pastor also showed the congregation a video featuring a man who claims to have been cured of his homosexuality after having a conversation with God.


"I am so happy God has given me natural affection for a woman," Adam Hood said during the video, adding that his wife is nine months pregnant. "We need to have compassion for people that are bound by that sin. And it is a sin. Call a spade a spade."


That type of talk puts Bachmann firmly out of step with the majority of Americans, including many moderate Republicans who support same-sex marriage in a country that’s growing increasingly accepting of homosexuality.


Nonetheless Bachmann, whose husband reportedly runs a counselling clinic that claims to "de-gay" its clients, isn’t shy about waging an apparent culture war, mixing religion with politics as she relentlessly romances Christian pastors and other religious voters in advance of the so-called Iowa Straw Poll today.


Late last week, the Bachmann campaign endorsed more than 100 state pastors and religious leaders.


"Michele has a long track record of standing firm on and fighting for conservative issues on the local, state and national level," Pastor Brad Sherman said in a release from the campaign.


"She has been in the battle for decades and has shown that her core values are non-negotiable in political storms. She has earned her claim to having a ’titanium spine’ on the issues we care most about."


Another pastor added: "Michele has fearlessly taken a stand for life and traditional marriage, while championing fiscally conservative legislation."


Similarly, fellow GOP candidate Rick Sanctorum, a Catholic, said, "It's sad that these questions are asked because of ignorance of what the Bible teaches."


Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, cited the verse's source, Ephesians 5, to clarify that biblical theology demanding submission and love between husbands and wives relates to marriage, not the workplace.


Land told ABC News that while the wife is called to subject herself to her husband, "there is a good many more things a husband is required to do than the wife is required to do."


In Ephesians chapter 5 verse 23, husbands are described as the "head of the wife" and are called in verse 25 to "love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave himself up for her."


Land explained that the husband is called to be the head of the house and give himself in sacrificial service to his wife.


Given that both men and women are called to give of themselves in marriage, Nance lamented that the male presidential candidates were not asked the same or a similar question.


Earlier this month, women expressed similar concern for the unfair treatment of female politicians when Newsweek magazine featured a wild-eyed Bachmann with the words "Queen of Rage."


Miss America 2011, Teresa Scanlan, the latest of several female figures to denounce the portrayal, accused Newsweek on national television of being sexist for portraying Bachmann differently than it does other male politicians.


"Whenever they've had a male on their cover, even if they don't agree with them as far as policy goes, they portray them in a serious light; they take them seriously and they portray them in a positive light," she asserted.


Neither Bachmann nor former Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin were given the same respect in their cover pictures, said Scanlan.


Palin was pictured on a 2009 Newsweek cover posing in a tight red shirt and bicycle shorts. Palin told Facebook fans that the picture was taken for Runner's World magazine and said its appearance on Newsweek was "out of context."


Scanlan said of Newsweek, "They simply try to degrade women and make fun of them and portray them in a negative light, and I think that shows extreme sexism."


She also criticized American culture for not taking sexism allegations seriously.


Bloggers, political pundits and even liberal group National Organization for Women also criticized the latest cover.

Michele Bachmann 'Submissive' Wife Idea a Matter of Interpretation

At Thursday’s GOP Presidential debate, many believed Michele Bachmann’s answer regarding the question of submitting to her husband as showing weakness. Many critics questioned her perspective on leadership and authority.

Yet the idea of submission turns out to be central to what the President of the United States must do in order to lead our country.

Bachmann answered by saying submission equals respect. “I respect my husband,” she responded. “He’s a wonderful godly man. We respect each other and we love each other.”

The words respect and love would not be found as synonyms for submission in any thesaurus. Submission is often used as a negative connotation dealing with slavery, abuse or manipulation. The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines submission as “an act of submitting to the authority or control of another.”

It appears that submission lacks freedom.

Bachmann’s belief of submission differs from what has been ingrained in today’s culture. How could it be that submission equals respect or even love?

Take for example a marriage proposal. Popping the question is the ultimate expression of love and in return asking, “Do you love me enough to spend your life with me?” The man is disposing his power by showing vulnerability and giving the option up to the woman. She has the choice to say yes, no, or even make a dramatic exit by running away in tears not being able to decide. It is a risk he is taking; a risk that exudes love.

Granted that the woman says yes, marriage ensues and the concept of submission again comes into play. In the context of the question Bachmann answered, submission meant putting her husband ahead of herself. Sacrificial love is another name for it. While it is a foreign concept for most of us, sacrificial love aims to help others—submission by serving.

In another way, take the perspective from two parents who see their grown child make choices that ruin his or her life and while they may try to direct their child in the right path, out of love they must ultimately surrender their will and let the child decide for him or herself.

Love does not impose.

Biblically, the story of submission is shown by God sending Jesus down to the earth to become human. He submits himself to death in order for the curse of sin to be broken for all of mankind.

Submission is the greatest act of love and respect.

Finally, take the President of the United States. While the president leads, guides and aims to be the stabilizer of the nation, ultimately he or she must grant the power to the people of the country to decide for themselves. It is in their power to vote, to live however they choose and to exercise their innate rights. We are a country of freedom, not dictatorship.

As the presidential election grows closer, the candidates must learn more and more the art of submission. Submitting to the mercy of the media through every step they take, every trip they make and too often than not, every persona they fake is part of the deal. Their ability to submit and respond with grace weeds out the weak from the strong.

Following the chorus of boos after the submission question was asked during Thursday’s debate, Bachmann’s answer followed with a celebratory cheer from the crowd. Her answer on the surface dealt with the way she treats her husband, but it also had larger implications. It expressed the way she looks at the world, the lens she views our country out of.

If Michele Bachmann were to become president, her act of submission would not be the kind that is weak. It would not be the kind of submission that gives up. To her, submission is showing complete sacrifice to the nation.

One of the most talked about moments at Thursday night's GOP debate on the Fox News Channel came when Bachmann of Minnesota was asked a question that raised some eyebrows. The question stemmed from a speech she gave in 2006 when she was running for Congress.

Bachmann told a church in Brooklyn Park, Minn., that she hated taxes, but went on to study tax law in order to be "submissive" to her husband.

"My husband said, now you need to go and get a post-doctorate degree in tax law. Tax law, I hate taxes. Why should I go and do something like that? But the Lord says, 'Be submissive.' Wives, you are to be submissive to your husbands," Bachmann told the crowd at the Living Word Christian Center. "Never had a tax course in my background, never had a desire for it, but by faith, I was going to be faithful to what I thought God was calling me to do through my husband, and I finished that course of that study."

Her response Thursday night to the Washington Examiner's Byron York was broader but no less faithful. Bachmann said she loved her husband and was "so proud of him."

"What submission means to us, if that's what your question is, it means respect. I respect my husband. He's a wonderful, Godly man and a great father, and he respects me as his wife," she told York and the millions watching. "That's how we operate our marriage. We respect each other, we love each other, and I've been so grateful that we've been able to build a home together."

The teaching is rooted in the fifth chapter of Ephesians in the New Testament: "Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.

The mainstream media and others are trying to wrap their arms around the concept they don't understand," Brody said. "Even though tens of millions not just evangelicals, but Christians around the country understand they are being put on the spot to explain.

Although Brody thought the question was unfair, Bachmann's spokeswoman Alice Stewart said she saw it "as an opportunity for her to clear up any concerns people may have had about that word. Clearly, people view that word differently. But for Michele and her husband that's the way they describe their relationship in terms of having a mutual respect for each other; and they do, they have a fantastic marriage, a very loving couple, and when they're using that term it's their expression of how they have a mutual respect and love for each other."

And Bachmann's Iowa campaign chairman Kent Sorenson agreed, also saying it was a "great opportunity."

"Anybody can ask any question they want. I don't think she's afraid to answer those questions. The audience sounded like they had a little different response," Sorenson said.

Bachmann's husband didn't shy away from commenting today at the Iowa State fair. "I think the fact that she is talking about two people who respect, honor, and communicate to each other about decisions just makes a lot of sense," Marcus Bachmann told ABC News. "I think the American people can see that that makes for a good marriage.

Michele Bachmann Wins! Scenes from the Ames Straw Poll Circus

AMES, Iowa — Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann scored a victory in the GOP Ames Straw Poll on Saturday, a win likely to provide her considerable momentum as the 2012 race ramps up.


“What we saw happen today is this is the very first step toward taking the White House in 2012, and you have just sent a message that Barack Obama will be a one-term president,” said Bachmann (R-Minn.) after her victory was announced.


Bachmann took 4,823 votes, narrowly escaping a major upset at the hand of Texas Rep. Ron Paul who won 4,671 votes. Former Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty placed third with 2,293, a showing that is likely to raise questions about his ability to continue in the contest.


The order of finish beyond the top three: former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum (1,567), businessman Herman Cain (1,456), Texas Gov. Rick Perry (718), former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney (567), former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (385), former Utah governor Jon Huntsman (69) and Rep. Thad McCotter (Mich.) (35).


Perry, Romney, Gingrich and Huntsman did not actively campaign in Ames. Nearly 17,000 vote were cast, the second-largest turnout in the history of the Straw Poll.


For Bachmann, the victory solidifies her as the frontrunner in the Iowa caucuses which are set to kick off the presidential balloting process in early February 2012.


Bachmann entered the poll as the favorite, as polling suggested that her popularity was surging in the state and Romney chose not to participate in an event he won in 2007.


Taking no chances, Bachmann saturated Iowa with television ads in the run-up to the Straw Poll and barnstormed across the state in the final days before the vote. (On Friday, she did five events, including an evening rally in which she threw cornballs into the crowd and jitterbugged with her husband, Marcus, onstage.)


On site at Ames, her operation had the whiff of disorganization in its early hours as people formed long lines to get into her tent — where country singer Randy Travis was performing.


Ultimately, more than 6,000 of the $30 tickets to vote were distributed by her campaign, according to a source inside her tent, giving her the edge and making her the first woman to ever win the Ames Straw Poll after 4,823 of them cast ballots for her.


"Thank you everyone for being here," Bachmann said to cheers, emerging briefly from her campaign bus to shake hands and thank supporters after being declared the victor. "This is the very first step toward taking the White House in 2012 and sending the message that Barack Obama will be a one-term president." The one-term president line has become a signature in her stump speech, so much so that the coliseum audience chanted it along with her when she used it in while addressing them earlier in the day.


"We love you. Thank you so much. It's your victory," she told supporters.


It's not totally clear what happened to the rest of the distributed Bachmann tickets, some 1,200 of which did not turn into votes. What was clear was that not everyone in Bachmann's long lines was an eligible voter -- there were a slew of people from Minnesota still waiting for beef sundaes toward the end of the balloting period, for example. Among them was Pat Konkleir, 58, who came down from Blaine, Minn., in Bachmann's district to help organize straw poll activities. "We brought down a bus of 40 or 50 or so," she said.


Even so, with 16,892 ballots cast, it was highest number of votes at a straw poll since 1999.


Bachmann's Iowa faith-based coalitions organizer credited her win to the churches. "I've not ever seen anything like this," he said, strolling the floor in the press center after it was clear she'd won but before the results were announced -- and before realizing he wasn't supposed to give out his name. They were "extraordinary numbers."


"At the end of the day, the story is going to be the faith-based turnout," he said. That, and Ed Rollins, Bachmann's top political adviser, who was "really an inspiration. He told us how to do it."


But in talking to volunteers wearing orange Michele Bachmann T-shirts or wilting in line for her tent, Bachmann's social conservatism stood out as only one aspect of what appeared to be a coalition that's gathered around her.


"She's a constitutionalist," observed volunteer Paul Dayton of Boone. "She's fiscally conservative. She votes the way she says she will."


"She's firm, she's solid. I love her enthusiasm. I love everything she is," effused Shirley Ripley, 70, of Charles City, a self-described "tea party person." Pressed for specifics, she pointed to "regulations up the ying yang," "how they're trying to tell us how we can't have salt, can't have potato chips, can't have pop" and what is being taught to children.


In addition to religious conservatives, fiscal conservatives and constitutionalists (which usually means people with a libertarian stance toward federal government regulations), Bachmann appeals to conservative women. Even if they are so conservative they can't always vote for her.


Dea Davenport, 73, of Diagonal, Iowa, said she was a Bachmann supporter but hadn't cast her straw poll vote for her. "If she were a man I would have voted for her," Davenport said. "I feel like a man ought to be running the country, but she'd be my second choice."


"I think she's a good candidate, though, I really do," she sighed. "I just wish she were a man."


A STALLED PAUL


Texas Rep. Ron Paul is waging his third presidential bid and has said he won't run for the House again so he can focus all his energies on it. The fact that he won as many votes as he did, 4,671, and that Bachmann could put together an operation that bested his years-long effort in just 48 days -- a number she mentioned repeatedly during her speech in the coliseum Saturday afternoon -- suggests both how narrow and deep his base of support is.


Paul has tended to win straw polls wherever he goes, but the critical difference between the Ames Straw Poll and the ones at the Conservative Political Action Conference and the Republican Leadership Conference earlier this year -- both of which he won -- is that this poll was limited to people from a circumscribed geographic area.


It's easy for Paul to gather his impassioned supporters from around the country at a conference; it's harder for him to muster support within a single locale. That was the case for him last cycle as well, when he was able to build enormous presence at GOP and conservative events throughout Iowa by drawing supporters from around the region but came in fifth in the straw poll.


This time, Paul did a better job turning out his local backers, but there was little to suggest he'd significantly broadened his appeal. His Hawkeye-State backers in Ames by and large seemed to have been with him for the long haul, rather than new supporters, raising questions about how much more backing he can gain before the caucuses. Sure, he had a dunk-tank near his tents for little kids, to compete with Bachmann's entertainingly tiny yellow blimp, which floated above her campaign bus all day to signal where her tent was, but the people who turned out for him weren't there for that or the hot dogs or his giant inflatable "Sliding Dollar" slide game.


Ray Bures, 69, of Ely, Iowa, had been a supporter of Paul's "going all the way back probably 20 years, when I first became aware of him." Tony Stuntz, 30, of Council Bluffs, had been backing him "since 2007" and says he'd "met a couple of guys who voted for him in '88." Mark Hansen, 30 and also of Council Bluffs, described himself as "a strong supporter for the last four years."


Paul's consistency has kept these voters and others like them with him, even as new candidates have entered the field. "He's always been doing the same thing," said Bill Hofmeister, 39, of Cedar Rapids, a Paul supporter since 2009. "He's not a flip-flopper.