--- by Teddy Partirdge

The Human Rights Campaign (HRC) has asked the Republican contenders for the presidential nomination (people over whom they can be presumed to have very little, if any, influence) to denounce and disavow anti-gay reparative “pray-away-the-gay” therapy as practiced by “Dr” Marcus Bachmann at Bachmann Associates, the mental health practice he co-owns with his wife, presidential candidate and Congresswoman Michele Bachmann.
Today, HRC is calling on the GOP candidates for President to disavow the dangerous “ex-gay” or “reparative therapies” endorsed by Michele Bachmann and her husband Marcus, a practicing, but unlicensed Minnesota psychologist whose clinic has been known to practice these therapies.
The very next day, Fred Karger, the gay contender for the GOP nomination and founder of Californians Against Hate who successfully sued the Mormon Church for its misleading campaign filings during Proposition 8, said this:
“She’s a liar and now that she’s been busted, she’s trying to divert attention away from her lies,” Fred Karger told the Michigan Messenger. “She is just another hypocrite and bigot.”
So, yay, HRC! Winning!

At today’s White House press briefing, the Washington Blade asked press secretary Jay Carney what President Obama’s opinion is of reparative therapy.
White House Press Secretary Jay Carney declined comment Monday on questions on President Obama’s position on widely discredited “ex-gay” reparative therapy aimed at changing gay individuals into being straight.
Under questioning from the Washington Blade, Carney said he hasn’t had any conversations with the president on reparative therapy — or whether Medicaid funding should support the practice — and deferred inquiries to the Department of Health & Human Services.
HRC has endorsed Barack Obama for president in 2012. Therefore, HRC can be presumed to have some influence over his thinking and views on lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) Americans. Shouldn’t the HRC pursue the president and his team for an answer on this question? Having endorsed the president for re-election, does HRC really expect to get an answer from any of the (other, non-gay) GOP candidates?

I mean, it’s fun to put the GOP candidates on the spot for how one of their own earns her living, but don’t LGBT supporters of the President deserve to know his views, too?

HRC, ask your endorsed candidate: does he support anti-gay reparative therapy? Or does he not support it?

reposted from firedoglake.  emphases added.  Hopefully, we'll get an answer to this simple, straightforward question.