Gaydar offers Marcus Bachmann free membership as his wife signs anti-gay pledge

Gaydar, an international gay dating website that offers members “what you want, when you want it” is offering Marcus Bachmann “a complimentary lifetime membership.”

“In light of Marcus Bachmann’s spike in popularity on gay and gay-friendly blogs across the U.S., Internet dating megasite Gaydar.net is offering the husband of Tea Party presidential candidate Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., a complimentary lifetime membership,” Gaydar’s blog stated this morning.

“Marcus Bachmann is popping up on everyone else’s gaydar, we figure he might want to be on the real Gaydar!” a rep at Gaydar headquarters blogged. “With over six million members, we like to think Gaydar is the picture of inclusivity – from swarthy barbarians to piggy politicos – all are welcome!” 

The Bachmanns are vehement anti-gay activists. Marcus Bachmann operates a “Christian counseling” clinic where he reportedly tries to save gays from “sin” through biblical teachings. He has referred to gays as “barbarians” in need of “discipline.”

Michele Bachmann has suggested that her fear and contempt of gays helped to inspire her political career, which has focused on efforts to enact policies preventing gays from achieving social equality. She has called gays as being “of Satan” and warned “it is our children who are the prize for this community.”

The Advocate reported that Bachmann was “first in line to sign” today to sign a new pledge called “The Marriage Vow: A Declaration of Dependence upon Marriage and Family.” The pledge, circulated by the anti-gay group Family Leader asks candidates to affirm that gay men are a public health risk, that gay parents are inferior to straight parents and that homosexuality is a choice.

The Family Leader is headed by Bob Vander Plaats, who has compared gay marriage to the dangers of second-hand smoke. He led the successful campaign to unseat three Iowa Supreme Court justices who legalized gay marriage in the state.

But despite the Bachmanns’ anti-gay stance, Marcus Bachmann’s strikingly effeminate personality has come to light amid the publicity surrounding his wife’s presidential campaign. With that attention has come ridicule from both the left and the right.

Gay conservative blogger Andrew Sullivan labeled Bachmann a “ssuper-sserial hunter of gays.” Kids in the Hall’s Dave Foley tweeted, “How can Michele Bachman be opposed to gay marriage when she is married to gay man.”

Many LGBT advocates have condemned the ridicule of Marcus Bachmann as unseemly and counterproductive.

“I don’t view saying that someone’s gay is a negative thing, but I believe that perceived sexuality was being used as an attack on Marcus Bachmann, and I find it unacceptable to use perceived sexuality as an attack on anybody,” Stonewall DFL chair David Joseph DeGrio told the Minnesota Independent.

 “The message I see it sending is a bit hypocritical because we’re advocating for policies in schools to stop this exact thing, saying someone’s effeminate or someone speaks with a high-pitched voice or even (saying) someone is gay because this a gay characteristic,” DeGrio said.

The unwanted attention of Marcus Bachmann has also led to scrutiny of the Bachmanns' marriage. Michele Bachmann provided a clue about the marriage in a 2006 speech to the Living Word Christian Center in which she suggested the marriage was based on “divine inspiration” rather than passion.

“And the Lord then led me to this man,” she said, pausing to identify her husband in the audience. “That my calling was to marry this man. And I tell you that, because, I hate to disappoint you, darling, but it wasn’t a big romantic surge that led us to each other. It was His word."