Price is a junior LPS and politics double major and can be contacted at [email protected]

Hello, and welcome to Drake University Representative Bachmann! Thanks for stopping by. I am a fellow Minnesotan from Apple Valley, Minn., I was also born and raised in Iowa, and additionally, I am a proud student at Drake University, and I’m excited you’ve decided to visit.

In the spirit of fostering civic debate, I thought I’d write this column to ask you a few questions primarily focused on your social policies. I intend to keep the tone respectful, and I want you to know I admire your respect toward those whom oftentimes disrespect you.

I must warn you before you make your remarks today that this is not Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University. That isn’t to say we’re the antithesis of Liberty University though. See, we Drake Bulldogs, like many Midwesterners, pride ourselves on open-mindedness and respect. We pride ourselves on being engaged citizens who attempt to understand multiple points of view. We pride ourselves on respecting many different voices, and listening and engaging with other’s worldviews and questions.

So, naturally, I try to engage with your worldviews and perspectives through the television when I see bits and pieces of your campaign like your remarks at Liberty University a month ago.

I saw then that Christianity is a central piece of your life and your platform for public office. It has, at times, been a central piece of my life as well.

One thing I can’t seem to reconcile is the divide between the compassion evangelicals like you espouse, and the vitriolic homophobia you also embrace.

Seeing public servants like you on television referring to gay youth’s confusing state as “part of Satan” does nothing to help them. Going to a psychologist who tells gays to “pray it away” (quite like your husband’s clinic does) often drives gay youth to immense depression and isolation at a terribly young age.

You should know your black-and-white disdain and abhorrence of homosexuality in the name of Christianity turns off quite a bit of our generation, even here in “God’s country.”

Furthermore, your love of your own religion makes me wonder where your contempt for Islam comes from.

See, most of us know better than to let the hateful words of some Christian fundamentalists paint the whole Christian picture, and most of us think the same applies to the overwhelmingly peaceful religion of Islam.

And even despite religion, I simply can’t wrap my mind around your proposal that Iraq should pay us back for the war we started there.

How much fog of war must fill our memory for us to think we invaded Iraq in March of 2003 to liberate them? Maybe if we found a couple WMDs we could ask them to pay their liberty rent checks, but the last time I checked (or the UN, US or IAEA for that matter) we found a resounding zero WMDs in Iraq.

I sometimes wonder if you spend so much time talking about how you want to prohibit gay marriage, Sharia law and abortion that you forget about the staggering unemployment rate posing a real threat to American families.

I sometimes wonder if you genuinely believe black children were better under slavery as you affirmed when you signed onto Bob VanderPlaat’s “family leader” pledge earlier this year.

This all brings many voters to a frightening, and reflexive question.

Does your worldview actually dictate the entire world must look like you and your family?

I guess we need some more Vikings fans.

But then again, I thought our country was founded on diversity of opinion, thought and people. Maybe there were some Christian beliefs there, but theology sure scared the hell out of our Founding Fathers, and your beliefs, at times, seem awfully close to it.

So I doubt we’ll change each other’s worldviews much, but I just thought I’d let you know many Americans appreciate leaders who will lead all of We the People — single mothers, whites, blacks, Muslims, the middle class, gays, Christians, straights, the poor, — and I think it would be encouraging to see your social beliefs include a few more people besides just yourself.