Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
Andy Birkey at the Minnesota Independent reports that a Christian counseling center owned by Michele Bachmann and her husband has received more than $30,000 in public funds since 2007. It even comes from one of those "socialized medicine" systems the state of Minnesota runs for poor people.
Founded in 2003, Bachmann's clinic has taken in nearly $30,000 in state funds since 2007. Dr. Bachmann has said publicly that God heals people at his clinic and that Jesus Christ is the "Almighty Counselor.""We are distinctly a Christian counseling agency here in the Twin Cities," he told KKMS radio in 2008. "We have 27 Christian counselors, Christ-centered, very strong in our understanding of who the Almighty Counselor is, and as we rely on God's word and the Almighty Counselor, we have the opportunity to change people's lives."
Here's how they get the money:
The clinic applied for and received Rule 29 and Rule 31 licensing from the state in 2003. The rules allow the clinic to receive state money to treat low-income Minnesotans for mental health and chemical dependency problems. The clinic has earned $27,564 in state payments since 2007 -- and likely received more, since the Minnesota Transparency and Accountability Project's online data only goes back to 2007. Bachmann and Associates took $1,419 in public money in 2007, $13,140 in 2008, $12,493 in 2009 and $512 so far in 2010, according to the transparency project.
And the constitutional problems:
"Unless they are receiving money purely through vouchers, this is clearly unconstitutional," said Alex Luchenitser, staff attorney for Americans United for Separation of Church and State. Vouchers are used in some states to allow those on public assistance to purchase services, but Minnesota has no such system in place."It's wrong for the government to buy clinical services that include submission to God or proselytization," said Luchenitser. "This appears to be a textbook case of taxpayers funds for religious purposes."
And if Dr. Bachmann only hires Christian employees, that could compound the problem, he added. "It sounds like employees have to be Christian to work in the clinic. That would be religious discrimination."
Chuck Samuelson, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Minnesota, was a bit more reserved.
"If the government is going to pay Lutheran Social Services and Catholic Charities to do stuff, then they have to meet certain critieria. Bachmann and Associates has to meet the same criteria."
"There are requirements that they insulate the sectarian or religious parts of their operations from the non-sectarian parts of their operation."
He added, "I really don't know if Bachmann and Associates is doing that."
Unsurprisingly, Bachmann did not return calls for comment.
Politics
Comments
Minnesota Independent:
I don't agree this means Mr. Bachmann only hires Christians. A more parsimonious possibility is that employees merely have to ignore science-based approaches and instead prescribe the Almighty Counselor's remedies as they are divinely revealed to Mr. Bachmann.
These funds are a pittance; I wonder why.
Posted by: Michael Heath | June 13, 2010 9:28 AM
Hypocrisy: it's okay if you're doing the Lord's work (and Christians are always doing the Lord's work).
Posted by: Zeno | June 13, 2010 9:38 AM
@Michael Heath
I was wondering about that - it wouldn't pay more than a salary for one person, with maybe some left over if they didn't get paid much. I wonder where the rest of their operating budget comes from.
Posted by: Sivi | June 13, 2010 12:17 PM
Didn't her father get ag subsidies, too?
Funny how many of these conservatards bleating "Welfare baaaaad" have zero self control about resisting the lure of govt money.
No, I don't want to hear how impossible it is to run a farm without subsidies. She's one of the dumber sheep benefitting from what she wants to deny to others. We need to start calling her the real Welfare Queen. Hell, the nutbar still can't wean herself off the government teat. Who does she think pays her salary? Hint Michelle: The Gubmint.
I think she should pay to be a rep. Letting her do such a piss poor job for free would be paying her too much.
Posted by: Aquaria | June 13, 2010 1:58 PM
Why do they need governement money when all they have to do is to pray to Jesus so that the money rains down from heaven?
Posted by: Paen | June 13, 2010 2:08 PM
Paen "Why do they need governement money when all they have to do is to pray to Jesus so that the money rains down from heaven?"
They did pray. JC thinks they're worth 30 grand.
Posted by: Modusoperandi | June 13, 2010 2:21 PM
What is the problem. If his counseling center is serving people and changing live, what is the problem. Mental illness has a spiritual component, and if it is not addressed, people won't get better, they just get medicated.
Posted by: Dean S | June 13, 2010 4:37 PM
Dean S "Mental illness has a spiritual component, and if it is not addressed, people won't get better, they just get medicated."
So I assume they wouldn't mind replacing the Christian psychologists and therapists with Muslim ones?
So I assume, given your declaration that religion + therapy works better than therapy alone, that you have objective statistics and peer-reviewed studies showing the greater positive effect of faith-based therapies versus reality-only ones?
Posted by: Modusoperandi | June 13, 2010 4:57 PM
Dean S.,
Constitutionally, if we allow one religious faith group to receive funding, we can't prevent others from receiving funding. Would you be comfortable with a psychologist who's a member of the Church of Satan offering faith-based counseling and receiving government funds?
That's not a snarky question. It is precisely the constitutional issue at stake.
Posted by: James Hanley | June 13, 2010 6:04 PM
Michelle Bachman is just another example of right wing nanny staters, passing themselves off as Conservatives or Libertarians, that are quite happy to receive government involvement within their lives and the lives of other people, as long as it fits into their agenda. And in this case it happens to be a particular strain of fundamentalist Christianity.
We call those people theocrats.
Posted by: Kazakhstanny Danny | June 13, 2010 6:30 PM
Many people who work with addictions (as well as some/most/all evangelical Christians) believe that, but it's a demonstrably false ideological position. People get better without "spiritual" matters being addressed and without drugs. They do so all the time. They get better in psychotherapy and their symptoms can even remit without treatment. Life can be an effective therapist.
This is not a comment on you (I don't know you) but in my experience the therapy business is overpopulated with know-nothings who were never required in their training to achieve in-depth understanding and reasonable mastery of the mainstream theories and treatment models, never mind they haven't a clue about how to develop data-driven case formulations or engage in treatment while cognizant of the multiplicity of possibilities available. Most of the time, serious analysis of the underlying treatment assumptions, including the strengths and weaknesses, are sorely lacking. In my experience, many clinicians rely, instead, on their implicit folk theories (family theories) seasoned by pop psychology or the assumptions of the recovery movement.
Clinicians for whom addiction was a primary training focus often make the mistake of looking at every problem through the lens of addiction, basing treatment on some unexamined combination of their own implicit assumptions and the assumptions of A.A. approach. It isn't that A.A. isn't helpful to many people, but it's comparable to a physician looking at every patient problem as a case of iron-deficient anemia and recommending iron supplements to every patient, while neglecting many other possibilities.
Consider the widely accepted assumption that people who view porn regularly are addicts. The assumption that this behavior is a disorder/disease isn't subjected to serious scrutiny. Porn addiction therapists don’t consider the possibility that they are seeing clients through the lens of their own shame or guilt-laden projections. Accordingly, they don't consider alternative conceptualizations when dealing with people who've created problems for themselves because of failure to control sexual impulses. The clinician comes with a ready-made (defensive) analysis and lays it on the client without recognizing that they’re working with an a priori hypothesis rather than a data-driven analysis of a given client's difficulties.
As Maslow said, [i]t is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail.
Posted by: Dr X | June 14, 2010 9:58 AM