Rep. Michele Bachmann's Holy Soldiers Against Gay Marriage

There's that popular church hymn, "Onward Christian Soldiers." Who knew it could be such a literal hymn.

Turn toward the state of Minnesota, where a group trying to organize Christian youth is using the metaphor of the holy soldier to champion conservative politics. They call themselves Generation Joshua, and if you listen to one of the founders, it sounds a little like a cross between Promise Keepers and a tent revival. The only difference is that this is solely for middle school and high school students.

"Quite frankly with the hymn ‘Soldiers of Christ, Arise’ running through my head, I want to inspire young Christians to fight for what is right," Ned Ryun, a co-founder of Generation Joshua, told the Minnesota Independent. So what's right and what's wrong for Ryun and his holy rollers? "There are many issues facing us today that will impact America for generations, same-sex marriage being a key one."

And as you can imagine, Ryun and Generation Joshua don't look too kindly on same-sex marriage. To say that they see it as an abomination is an understatement. They might just see it as the ticking time bomb out to destroy society.

In that position, they've certainly got a friend in Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann, who once said that gay marriage was a plague that would corrupt America's children. As the Minnesota Independent uncovers, Rep. Bachmann and Generation Joshua have a very incestuous relationship. Kids involved in Generation Joshua have been encouraged to campaign for Bachmann in years past, and in a couple weeks, Rep. Bachmann is set to headline a political training for these soldiers of God.

For Rep. Bachmann, this marks yet another group fanatically against same-sex marriage that she's been associated with in the past month. The other group — a rock band known as You Can Run But You Cannot Hide — is a band that travels across Minnesota playing music with a side of gay bashing. The group's front man, Bradlee Dean, has said that countries that kill gay people should be respected by the United States, because they're living out the rules set forward in the Bible.

"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," Dean said. "They know homosexuality is an abomination."

Politics makes for all kinds of bed fellows, but Rep. Michele Bachmann sure has curious angels sitting on her shoulders. On the one hand she has a band that calls for terrorism and torture to be committed against people who are gay and lesbian, and on the other shoulder she has a youth organization where the founder wants to build an army of "soldiers" dedicated to Christ and harshing on gay marriage.

Anyone else picturing that scene from the second season of True Blood, where the megachurch welcomes a team of young, strapping men to build an army against the vampires? Sometimes fiction certainly parallels reality.

Minnesota is certainly becoming a hotbed of gay marriage news. For instance, all of the major candidates running for the Democratic Farmer Labor (DFL) gubernatorial nomination support marriage equality, and a few weeks ago, a lawsuit was filed challenging Minnesota to recognize same-sex marriage. That all comes on top of a giant anti-gay ad blitz in the state by the National Organization For Marriage (NOM), that Maggie Gallagher-founded group dedicated to tearing apart LGBT families and preventing gay and lesbian couples from marrying. (We now know that NOM also likes to go barefoot inside courtrooms, too. Blech.)

Is Minnesota the next ground zero in the debate over marriage equality? Certainly looks like things are shaping up that way. And one can only imagine Generation Joshua, Rep. Michele Bachmann, and You Can Run But You Cannot Hide all thinking, "From my cold, dead hands," to paraphrase a movie they're likely all quite familiar with.

Photo credit: Rep. Michele Bachmann