Anti-LGBT Republican Michele Bachmann is preparing for a potential political comeback – and a run for the Senate.
The Tea Party politician served in the US House of Representatives from 2007 until 2014, earning a reputation while in office as one of the strongest opponents of LGBT rights in Congress.
Mrs Bachmann claimed: “I think [gays] want to abolish age of consent laws, which means we will do away with statutory rape laws so that adults would be able to freely prey on little children sexually.
“That’s the deviance that we’re seeing embraced in our culture today.”
She also warned there would be “profound consequences” from God in response to same-sex marriage, and claimed that gay people are working alongside Islamist terrorists and the Black Lives Matter movement to undermine American values.
But three years on from her exit from Congress, Mrs Bachmann is planning to make a comeback and run for the Senate.
The Republican hinted that she plans to stand for the Senate seat in Minnesota vacated by embattled Democrat Al Franken.
Speaking to evangelical TV host Jim Bakker, she said: “I’m from Minnesota. I’ve had people contact me and urge me to run for that Senate seat.
“The only reason I would run is for the ability to take these principles into the United States Senate and be able to advocate for these principles.”
She added: “The question is, should it be me, should it be now? But there’s also a price you pay. And the price is bigger than ever because the swamp is so toxic.”
Mrs Bachmann continued: “If you stand up for Biblical principles in DC, the blades come whirring and they try to chop you off. This is not an easy place to be.
“We’re trying to be wise. Should we do this? Shouldn’t we do this?”
Though Minnesota went for Hillary in 2016, the Democrats retained the Senate seat by just 300 votes in 2008 – leaving it vulnerable to a challenge.
Since leaving office, Bachmann, who served on Donald Trump’s Evangelical Advisory Board, has grown steadily more extreme and disturbing in her public statements.
After millions took part in Women’s March protests across the US, Bachmann claimed gays, black activists and Islamists have decided to “work together” against the new President.
She said: “People understand Islam abhors homosexuality, yet they often join forces in protests with gay activists.
“The answer is simple, Black Lives Matters, the gay agenda, as well as Islamic supremacism, all seek domination over American freedoms.
“They cannot reach their aims separately, but they can realize the fall of individual liberties if they work together. Once liberties fall, the groups break with each other in a race to impose their particular views on the American populace.
“Causing liberties to fall is a long-term project, and they will use whatever allies they can get to realize that phase of their goals.”
She also claimed that Donald Trump’s election victory was a “supernatural” intervention by God to stop protections for transgender people.
Speaking on ‘Understanding the Times with Jan Markell’, she claimed: “We know that [Trump’s election] just wasn’t in the natural. This was in the supernatural where God sovereignly, I believe, answered the prayers of believers beseeching him and he’s given us a reprieve.”
Of course, many people sensed the mysterious hands of an unknown power interfering in the US election, but most of them have concluded that it was the Russian government – or the electoral college system that allowed Trump to gain power with three million fewer votes than his opponent.
But Bachmann is certain it was actually God.
In the clip transcribed by Right Wing Watch, she explained: “This was the last exit ramp for the country and if we were not going to see a political change,
“We were in a situation where the president of the United States on his own just issued a sheet of paper and said, overnight, every single public school in the country would have to have the girls’ bathrooms open to the boys and the boys’ bathrooms open to the girls.
“What we were told from the White House, is that when we look at our body in a shower, our body isn’t reality anymore, so we actually get to choose if we’re a boy, if we’re a girl, if we’re one of like 58 different whatever that we decide we want to be that day.
“In other words, we were all told that we were forced to repeat a lie, not the truth… and when you repeat lies, Romans 1 tells us, that’s when you fall into deception, God’s gives us over to our own delusion.
“[But] we were given a reprieve… God has privileged us in this country that we get to be able to vote for the laws and the people we live under so people decided to take that vote. It was completely unprobable… I know it was a reprieve.”
A 2011 investigation found a religious counselling centre owned by Ms Bachmann attempts gay ‘cure’ therapy and aims to repress “homosexual urges”. Her husband, Marcus Bachmann, ran the service.
She has also claimed that God would destroy America because of the “sin-sick” culture of same-sex marriage.
