Michele Bachmann appeared on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno and discussed same-sex marriage equality and the Christian counseling centers she owns with her husband, Marcus. Trying to laugh off the fact that their clinics practice so-called “ex-gay,” or “reparative” therapy, also known as pray away the gay, Bachmann tried to make a joke and said, “I Â thought it was kind of a mid-life crisis line, pray away the gray — that’s what I thought it was.” It was obviously rehearsed, and instead of “away,” Bachmann says, “arway.”
On the gay marriage front, Leno said, “Two gay guys get married, how does that affect my marriage?” Bachmann stuck to her talking points, did not deviate from the script, and said, “the family is foundational, and marriage between a man and a woman has been the law for years and years.”
She actually dared to try to position her Christian counseling clinics as non-discriminatory. “Whatever issue someone has, we don’t discriminate.” Right. If you’re gay, we don’t discriminate, we’ll just try to make you straight.
CBS adds, “The tone was friendly, but the talk show host told the congresswoman she is ‘pretty strident’ and challenged her views on a vaccine against cervical cancer, and on homosexuality.”
“Thanks for being a good sport,” Leno told the Minnesota congresswoman as she settled in on the set of “The Tonight Show,” joining a long line of presidential candidates who have tried to use late-night TV as an image burnisher. “We’ve done a million jokes. Hopefully, you haven’t been watching any of them,” he said.
Pressed on her opposition to a vaccination aimed at preventing cervical cancer, the congresswoman offered a new reason for her stand: “It gives a false sense of assurance to a young woman when she has that, that if she’s sexually active that she doesn’t have to worry about sexually transmitted diseases.”
Bachmann, who has become the target of widespread derision in the medical community after reporting that a woman in the debate audience told her that her daughter became mentally retarded after receiving the vaccination, said she is not opposed to immunizations against other ailments.
She acknowledged that Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s entrance in the race may have caused her drop in the polls.
“It changes the dynamic,” Bachmann said. “But we’re in for the marathon. We’re not in for the sprint.” Asked about the possibility of the 2008 GOP vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin entering the race, Bachmann said: “She may decide to do it. And the more people who come in, the merrier.”
While most of the exchange was fairly serious, Leno managed to work in a one-liner when he asked Bachmann about her uncompromising stands. “Convicted. I’m convicted,” the congresswoman said.
Leno corrected her on her verb usage. “You don’t get convicted until AFTER you’re in office,” he said. “You have to get elected first.”
Bachmann turned the tables on Leno when he asked who she’d want as a running mate, saying she couldn’t pick him, because “you don’t want a cut in pay.”
The “Tonight” host said he had other reasons for not accepting the job. “We’d probably have a fight over the gay thing.”
Said Bachmann: “Yeah.”
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