'Gays are part of Satan and their life is bondage': Bachmann's thoughts on homosexuality

Michele Bachmann made comments at 2004 conference

Said 'sexual identity disorders' are 'very real issue'

Describes homosexual lifestyle as 'personal bondage'

Her Christian counselling centre has been criticised



Her controversial stance on homosexuality has already got the political world talking and could yet have a damaging impact in the polls.

Now it's emerged Michele Bachmann, 55, said at a conference in 2004 that gays are ‘part of Satan’ and the homosexual lifestyle is ‘bondage’.

The Republican presidential candidate’s quotes were reported by Gawker and indicated she is unhappy that ‘gays are made to look good’.

Controversial: Michele Bachmann, 55, said at a conference seven years ago that gays are 'part of Satan' and the homosexual lifestyle is 'bondage'

Her quotes made at the National Education Leadership Conference have come out after she surged to the top of the Republican nomination polls.

'We need to have profound compassion for the people who are dealing with the very real issue of sexual dysfunction in their life, and sexual identity disorders. This is a very real issue. It's not funny, it's sad' Michele Bachmann (2004)



Mrs Bachmann said in 2004 people dealing with ‘sexual dysfunction’ and ‘sexual identity disorders’ need ‘profound compassion’, reported Gawker.

‘This is a very real issue,' she said at the event. 'It's not funny, it's sad.



'Any of you who have members of your family that are in the lifestyle - we have a member of our family that is.

‘This is not funny. It's a very sad life. It's part of Satan, I think, to say this is gay. It's anything but gay.’

She added: ‘If you're involved in the gay and lesbian lifestyle, it's bondage.



'Personal bondage, personal despair and personal enslavement. And that's why this is so dangerous.’

Mrs Bachmann said gay activists try to make gays ‘look good’, whereas in the 1980s they would have been ‘outlandish’ and ridiculed on TV.

Couple: The congresswoman has already been accused of using discredited treatments to try and 'cure' gay people with her husband, Marcus

She has 25 per cent of the vote compared to 21 per cent for former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney among Iowa voters, a poll said.



ABC investigation: John Becker secretly filmed a 'therapist' at the centre telling him that 'in terms of how God created us we are all heterosexual'

But the Minnesota congresswoman has been accused of using discredited treatments to try and 'cure' gay people with her husband, Marcus.

Therapists working at Bachmann & Associates claim she told gay men their 'condition' can be reversed by praying to God and reading the Bible.

The centre has attracted controversy before, after it was revealed Mr Bachmann called gay people 'barbarians' who 'need to be educated'.

One patient was told that he should 'pray away the gay' whilst another was informed that in God's eyes we are all 'born heterosexual'.

Such a notion has been rubbished by psychiatrists who say that it can be incredibly damaging for a gay person to hear.