Homophobe Michele Bachmann Considering Senate Run, If God Says OK

Michelle Bachmann is considering a comeback -- running for U.S. Senate from Minnesota, if God says it's OK.

The anti-LGBT former congresswoman and failed presidential aspirant told televangelist Jim Bakker last week that she might run for Al Franken's former seat in 2018 to bring her biblical worldview to Washington. "I've had people contact me and urge me to run for that Senate seat, and the only reason I would run is to be able to take these principles into the United States Senate," she said on The Jim Bakker Show.

"So the question is, am I being called to do this now? she added. She said she believes God called her to run for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination to make the repeal of the Affordable Care Act a signature issue. "I feel like I was wildly successful ... I didn't win, but I moved the debate," she said. "So I didn't shed a tear when I left the contest because I felt like, you know, I fulfilled the calling that God gave me."

Franken, a Democrat who resigned due to sexual harassment accusations, is being replaced in the Senate by another Dem, Tina Smith, who has been Minnesota's lieutenant governor. Democratic Gov. Mark Dayton appointed her to serve in the Senate only until a special election can be held in November. Smith intends to run in that election for the remainder of Franken's term, until 2020. So far the only other candidate to announce is Republican Karin Housley, currently a state senator.

Bachmann, a right-wing Christian, is well-known for her homophobia and other extreme views. In a 2014 interview on the Faith & Liberty radio show, she claimed LGBT activists wanted to legalize not just same-sex marriage but polygamous marriage, and to do away with age-of-consent laws "so that adults would be able to freely prey on little children sexually."

In 2017, in an interview with far-right website World Net Daily, she said LGBT activists are working with "Islamic supremacists" and other groups to "realize the fall of individual liberties." "People understand Islam abhors homosexuality, yet they often join forces in protests with gay activists," Bachmann said. "The answer is simple, Black Lives Matters, the gay agenda, as well as Islamic supremacism, all seek domination over American freedoms."

Bachmann served four terms in Congress from Minnesota's Sixth District, 2007-2015, and decided not to seek a fifth term. Her husband, Marcus Bachmann, runs counseling centers that have been accused of practicing "ex-gay" therapy, something the Bachmanns have denied, despite the revelations of activists who have gone undercover at the clinics. Last year one of the clinics was cited by state regulators for unrelated violations of Minnesota law, such as "failing to keep information about its clients' developmental condition, as well as failing to keep records demonstrating that clients were informed of treatment alternatives and possible outcomes," according to the Minneapolis Star Tribune.

Watch a clip from Michele Bachmann's interview on the Bakker show below, courtesy of Right Wing Watch.