Brody's Notes... Michele Bachmann Silent On Teen Suicides In Her Congressional District

Dr. Marcus Bachmann with his wife Rep. Michele Bachmann
Photo via Chicago Pride

By Brody Levesque | LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA -- The Huffington Post reports that GOP presidential challenger and Tea Party favourite Congresswoman Michele Bachmann's silence coupled with her anti-gay allies' position regarding the rash of adolescent suicides in Bachmann's congressional district, which is Minnesota's largest school district- the Anoka-Hennepin Schools- creates a threatening environment for at-risk LGBTQ youth in her district.

According to the Huffington Post:

Over the last two years, nine teens in district schools have committed suicide, and Bachmann's allies are being accused of standing in the way of "blocking an effective response to the crisis and fostering a climate of intolerance that allowed bullying to flourish," Mother Jones reports. Bachmann signed a pledge this month stating that homosexuality is a choice.
The situation in Anoka-Hennepin Schools is so bad that Minnesota public health officials have deemed the area a "suicide contagion" because of the unusually high number of suicides and attempted suicides, according to the school district's website.
Bachmann has since stayed quiet on the issue. She didn't respond to inquiries from Mother Jones or the New York Daily News.
She historically wasn't a supporter of anti-bullying legislation. In 2004, she took part in a rally that pushed for the ban of gay marriage, according to the New York Daily News. Slate reports that in 2006, she said passing a bill that prevents bullying wasn't worth the time.

"I think for all of us, our experience in public schools is there have always been bullies," Slate reports Bachmann telling the Minnesota state legislature. "Always have been, always will be. I just don't know how we're ever going to get to the point of zero tolerance... What does it mean? ... Will we be expecting boys to be girls?"

Critics are arguing that Bachmann's impassiveness for bullying issues, her opposition to gay rights alongside Anoka-Hennepin Schools'controversial policy on teaching or talking about sexual orientation, creates a threatening environment for at-risk youth in the district.

The Anoka-Hennepin Schools district's curriculum policy states that all LGBTQ issues should be discussed outside of the classroom and that faculty members, administrators, counselors and staff employees "shall remain neutral on matters regarding sexual orientation including but not limited to student led discussions." The policy has been referred to as "no homo promo."

CNN reported last Thursday that investigators from the U. S. Justice Department working with representatives from the U. S. Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights are looking into "allegations of harassment and discrimination in the Anoka-Hennepin School District based on sex, including peer-on-peer harassment based on not conforming to gender stereotypes," according to a district memo provided exclusively to CNN.
Anoka-Hennepin Superintendent Dennis Carlson told CNN that the district does not plan to revise its policy on sexual orientation curriculum.

The Congresswoman's husband Marcus Bachmann has also come under fire for his christian based "pray away the gay" clinics, which  critics say are little more than discredited 'reparative theraphy clinics' that both Bachmanns continue to publicly deny.

RELATED: From Think Progress: Michele Bachmann sees threat behind schools teaching homosexuality.