AUDIO: Bachmann talks of born again experience, political ideology

Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, a potential 2012 Republican presidential candidate, is today’s guest in The Family Leader’s Presidential Lecture Series.  The venue for her midday appearance is the Vermeer Auditorium at Pella Christian High School.

At 12:48 p.m. Bob Vander Plaats of The Family Leader took the stage.  Vander Plaats said his group is concerned about fiscal issues, including the national debt. “And the reason is it all impacts the family,” he said.

BVP described Bachman as pro-life, pro-marriage, pro-constitution, pro-economic and he praised Bachmann for voting against the budget deal this past weekend.  Jen Green is next on stage, to introduce Bachmann.  She praised Bachmann for “making all the right enemeis” during her 10-year tenure in congress.

At 12:55 p.m. Bachmann took the stage.  The crowd stood to applaud her entrance.  “Hi, everyone,” Bachmann said.  “…I only wish the tulips were up right now.”  That’s a reference to Pella’s famous tulip festival in May.

AUDIO from speech 43 min

“Some of you may know that I am an Iowan,” Bachmann said, telling the crowd an “Iowegian” is a “Norwegian Iowan.”

“I feel like I know you,” she told the crowd. “I’m one of you.”

She then shared a “background of her faith story.”

She was born into a Lutheran family and while she’s sure the gospel had been preached during her childhood, “I don’t think I heard it; I don’t think I understood it” until she turned 16.

It’s at the age of 16 — on November 1, 1972 — “that I understood I was a sinner…and I needed salvation…At that time I confessed…At that moment, my whole life changed…and I became a new creation…He put his mantle of righteousness on me and it changed my whole world forever,” she said.

Bachmann said the most “distinct feature” of her conversion was “an absolute hunger and a thirst for the word of God…All of a sudden the Holy Spirit was my teacher and I could understand the word of God.”

She joined a group of Christian youth at her school and went to prayer meetings before school started.  “It has been absolutely the defining year of my life,” Bachmann said of 1972 — when she was 16.

She talked of graduating from high school and then spending the entire summer in Israel.  She talked about going to college, meeting her husband, getting married, raising five biological children and 23 foster kids, being a state legislator in Minnesota.

Next up: this weekend’s budget deal. “It’s very important that we defund the left,” Bachmann said.

“…I broke with my own leadership this weekend…I was very disappointed at the bill that came through….The voters expected us to defund ObamaCare,” she said.

“…(President Obama) can be held hostage and Harry Reid can be held hostage is we don’t give them money,” Bachmann said.

Bachmann spent some time focused on Planned Parenthood, which she described as a $1 billion organization bent on becoming “the Lens Crafters of big abortion.”

Bachmann said voters were disappointed in the budget deal.  “They expected so much more from us and so do I,” she said. “We will never win if we don’t fight.”

She described making deep cuts in the federal budget this way:  “We have to change the arc of history.”

Bachmann talked about trying to get a constitutional amendment passed in Minnesota that would ban gay marriage and she talked about how she and her husband have been “sidewalk counselors” on abortion.  “It all begins with life,” Bachmann said.  “…Even though Roe v Wade passed in the 1970s, it is amazing how it remains at the center part of a disagreement that we have not yet settled these many years later…It says in the scripture that God has written his law upon our heart and we know intuitively that this is wrong….And I will not give up until we give life the position it deserves in the United States.”

Next up, tax policy.  “This is a killer for the family,” Bachmann said of the current tax rates.  She touted an Arizona tax deduction for private school tuition.

She ridiculed the 3.8 million words in the federal tax code. “I think it’s overkill.  We have to abolish the United States tax code. The sooner the better,” she said. “Ot is killing our nation.”

“We can do this. I just want you to be encouraged…I love my nation. I want it to go on…That’s a sentiment that is shared all across the nation right now.  It is the overwhelming sentiment…so I want you to be encouraged…We can win the triple crown in 2012,” she said, a reference to Republicans winning the U.S. House, U.S. Senate & the presidency.

She said Al Franken “stole” the U.S. senate seat in Minnesota…”and that’s how we got ObamaCare.”

The GOP needs to nominate a fighter for president in 2012 she said. “I’ve been a proven fighter,” Bachmann said.

Bachmann then criticized The Federal Reserve, and the “debasing” of U.S. currency.

She praised the Tea Party movement. “This is the movement and the ideas that are taking over our nation today and these are the ideas we need to get our country back to a constitutional basis,” Bachmann said. “…Don’t be depressed.  Light a candle…We can turn this around.”

She ended with a statistic.  In 1960, five percent of babies were born out of wedlock. Today, 41 percent of babies are born out of wedlock.  “I do not say that to condemn anyone.  This is a sobering statistic…It’d be fun to turn this around….because I remember how great it was to grow up in Iowa…It was so much fun. We didn’t have a lot of money, but we were so rich in family and rich in our faith….We serve a holy God who has not yet given up on us,” Bachmann said.  Her speech ended at 1:39 p.m.