Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann has been waging a media campaign to reassure everyone that she did not support slavery and save her presidential campaign. The controversy erupted after the Congresswoman signed the 'Marriage Vow’, a pledge drafted by conservative Christian organization Family Leader.

One passage in the pledge read: 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.”

Hell broke loose after Bachmman signed seemingly endorsed this view of slavery,forcing the frontline candidate to explain she did not intend to support slavery.

Her campaign spokeswoman said Bachmann endorsed only the vows portion of the pledge, not the passages that meant the slave system had done good to black families. In no uncertain terms, Congresswoman Bachmann believes that slavery was horrible and economic enslavement is also horrible, the spokeswoman said.

Family Leader removed the controversial sentence in the pledge in light of protests.

Bachmann, who is trying to shape up her presidential candidacy around the image of an architypal christian conservative, has had her foot in the mouth before as well. She said earlier in the year that the Founding Fathers worked tirelessly until slavery was no more in the United States. It was pointed out that she overlooked the fact that the some of those who crafted the
constitution slave owners and that all of them passed away before the Civil War.

The slavery stance has apparently put Bachmann's presidential run on a slippery slop, but curiosuly, she loves the slave metaphor.

Below are some other comments she made recently, which lavishly draws on the slavery metaphor:

This is slavery…It's nothing more than slavery. (On health care reform).

It is a slavery, it is a slavery that is a bondage to debt and a bondage to decline … It is a subservience of a sovereign people to a failed, self-selected elite. (On the national debt).

If you're involved in the gay and lesbian lifestyle, it's bondage. It is personal bondage, personal despair and personal enslavement. (On homosexuality).

Health Care Reform