Michele Bachmann Slavery Gaffes Continue

Presidential candidate Michelle Bachmann is again weathering criticism over a statement related to slavery, this time for signing a document that suggested African American families were more stable when slavery was legal.

Seeking to strengthen her position as an established social conservative, Bachmann endorsed a pledge called the Marriage Vow, composed by a conservative Christian organization, that denounced homosexuality and pornography. The pledge also lamented the deterioration of African American families by harkening back to pre-Civil War America.

Slavery had a disastrous impact on African-American families, yet sadly a child born into slavery in 1860 was more likely to be raised by his mother and father in a two-parent household than was an African American baby born after the election of the USA's first African-American President, the document read.

Family Leader, the group that circulated the document, removed the offending passage. A Bachmann spokeswoman later told Politico that the pledge did not reference slavery and advanced Bachmann's position that slavery was horrible and economic enslavement is also horrible in a swipe at President Obama's policies.

This is not the first time Bachmann has been forced to explain a controversial statement about slavery. In January she said that the Founding Fathers worked tirelessly until slavery was no more in the United States, neglecting the fact that the architects of the constitution died before the Civil War and were for the most part slave owners.