These past few months it has become nearly impossible to turn on a TV or read a paper without seeing Michele Bachmann’s name plastered everywhere. With the media coverage Bachmann has been receiving, you would think it was due to her profound vision for the future of America, or for her strong character and passion for people — or at least that she is the second coming.

Some may argue that she in fact represents all of those qualities, but the reality is that she is the antitheses of what Americans need.

Bachman’s values are rooted in the same hatred and “isms” that have brought tragedy throughout history. Veiling her anti-gay sentiments with religion and “protecting our children” rhetoric isn’t convincing. It makes me sick to think that others would fall for her charade and elect a flagrant bigot as the next president of the United States of America, arguably the leader of the world.

She has a longstanding history of spewing bias against the gay community: She began her anti-gay crusade in Minnesota through legislation in 2004 with a constitutional ban on gay marriage, and it isn’t about to stop.

A presidential candidate has no place evangelizing on the campaign trails; it is tacky and offensive. We have a separation of church and state for a reason: to free us from a theocracy. Freedom of religion is one thing, but shameless assertion of bigotry on behalf of your faith tradition should automatically discount a candidate’s viability.

You may think that she has the freedom to discuss her religious views, and I’d agree with you. But she doesn’t just share them, she imposes them upon others through legislation. My own interpretation of the church-state separation clause of the Constitution is that even favoring religion over no religion at all is still favoring religion. There mustn’t be any presence of religion if we want true equality.

Bachmann has an interesting way of grass-roots activism, but it isn’t what you’d typically think about. She appears on Christian radio talk shows very frequently. “You Can Run, But You Cannot Hide!”, one such radio show that Bachmann supports, preaches some of the worst hate proudly.

Bradlee Dean, the program’s host, discusses his Christian opposition to being gay quite frequently — he was quoted from his live show once as saying, “Muslims are calling for the executions of homosexuals in America. This just shows you they, themselves, are upholding the laws that are even in the Bible of the Judeo-Christian God, but they seem to be more moral than even the American Christians do, because these people are livid about enforcing their laws. They know homosexuality is an abomination.”

Congresswoman Bachmann has donated to “You Can Run” on numerous occasions. Do we really want someone who condones such death threats? If Dean is the type of individual with whom she aligns herself, she is obviously lacking either professional decorum or a healthy moral center. I think one of her more offensive and ludicrous quotes is, “You have a teacher talking about his gayness. (An elementary school student) goes home then and says, ‘Mom! What’s gayness? We had a teacher talking about this today.’ The mother says, ‘Well, that’s when a man likes other men, and they don’t like girls.’ The boy’s 8. He’s thinking, ‘Hmm. I don’t like girls. I like boys. Maybe I’m gay.’ And you think, ‘Oh, that’s, that’s way out there. The kid isn’t gonna think that.’ Are you kidding? That happens all the time. You don’t think that this is intentional, the message that’s being given to these kids? That’s child abuse.” This was from a conference with an organization she was a part of in Minnesota called Ed Watch.

She’s also called the movie “The Lion King” gay propaganda because Elton John wrote the music. I mean, come on. Are you kidding me?

It just seems illogical that she, as a presidential candidate, would tout her religious intolerance of the gay community with false propaganda. I mean seriously, if you look at any of the things she says/is doing with her husband’s clinic with reparative therapy to help “un-gay” people, you’d see that EVERY SINGLE professional organization (the American Psychological Association being one) has stated that her beliefs are false and have no factual basis.

I could go on and on about her, and so could many others. I’m just hoping that the people of Iowa will see through her smoke-and-mirrors side show. Michele Bachmann is a fascist and has no place impacting the lives of others through public office.