“In America, if a man puts something into another man, it had better be a bullet.” ~Bill Maher
~
He started our interview with a prayer. "Lord, thank You so much for this time. Thank You for Michael being with us, thank You for the opportunity to stand for what You want. Make his article come out for Your Glory and may it in enhance Michael's career."
With this off-putting start, with all the godly nouns verbally capitalized, we got into a conversation. He’s Rev. Ken Hutcherson, Senior pastor of the Antioch Bible Church where 3500-4000 souls meet every Sunday in a suburban high school gym near Seattle. I was doing a lengthy profile of him for last month's (March 2005) issue of Seattle Magazine.
Hutcherson, is in national news today because The Stranger reporter, Sandeep Kaushik and now Sarah Kershaw in the New York Times is reporting that the good reverend threatened a national boycott against Microsoft if they continued their support for a gay rights bill in the Washington Legislature. The bill has been up every session for over 20 years; and this year with Democrats owning the governor’s mansion and both legislative houses, the law stood the best chance of passing it had ever had.
The Redmond software giant cowering like the little baby it is, withdrew its endorsement, assuring the act’s failure by one vote.
Hutcherson, 52, is a big and tall black man; former Dallas Cowboy, Seattle Seahawk line-backer, gentleman farmer, breeder of Rottweilers and quarter horses. He was invited to George Bush’s inauguration.
He says he used to be mad, but now, thanks to the Lord Jesus, he’s just getting even--with the Devil, that is, who needs to be fought tooth and claw every day, in every way in this wicked end time world.
We spent hours, he, the Lord, and I, in his office and on the phone and I found him to be one of the most compelling, charismatic individuals I’d ever been close up to. Hutcherson would hate the comparison, but the psychic space he takes up in a room is reminiscent of Bill Clinton.
I gotta be honest: I liked him. But there’s no doubt: he’s dangerous.
His is the kind of insinuation into politics by the religious right that’s so treacherous to our dream and constitutional promise of secular government. It’s like Dr. James Dobson, who, after the election, released a list of politically vulnerable Democratic Senators up for election in ‘06; warning they’d better play ball on judicial nominations or they’d be within range of the Mighty Swift Sword of the evangelical political machine.
Hutcherson is a powerful and effective political operative and self-promoter. He’s been emboldened by what he considers his successes: his pre-election anti-marriage equality rallies; the defeat of gubernatorial candidate Ron Sims; and the election of George W. Bush. In March, he with other state evangelical activists, led a well-scrubbed mob to Olympia to protest equal marriage rights, stem-cell research, women’s reproductive choice and gay bowling.
Hutcherson has a trump card that I suspect he played on the trembling Microsoft Image Team (or whatever eager name they call their spineless flacks).
His trump card is the race card. He plays it well when he needs to, which is often. In the progressive Puget Sound region, when a black man starts using the language of civil rights and the historic black struggle, white liberals shut up, put on their tip-toe slippers, assume the requisite submissive “active listening” stance (with the little head-jerks and the annoying “OK’s”) and couch their words in politically correct conditionals. Then Hutcherson takes over the proceedings.
There are many examples of his race demagoguery such as Antioch's logo: an open Bible with a black page, a white page and the words, "Black and white in a gray world." It sounds like racial integration and all-you-need-is-love, etc. but what it really is, is the hardpan, Manichean good/evil, no nuance, Biblical dogma he preaches.
“Homosexuality is learned behavior, he says, “just like prejudice.” (italics mine)
In testifying before a legislative hearing on adoption, according to Rebecca Heartz, Exec. Director of Amara Parenting & Adoption Services, Hutcherson “played the race card so effectively and with such passion, people who tried to oppose his provisions were intimidated."
(Antioch provides free adoptions and is trying to pass legislation to make all state adoptions faith-based. Hutcherson is trying to put non-profit agencies like Amara out of business. His real agenda is to eliminate adoption by gay or single parents and to pull in potential new church members and converts from couples attracted to free adoption services).
His congregation in this white 'burb is hard to stereotype--that is, it has a frighteningly wide appeal. It is, by there own account, 65 percent white, 15 percent, African-American and the balance comes from "every nationality under the sun." There are all all economic and educational backgrounds, they say, as well as all ages (though the services have a large number of 20 to 40-year-olds with kids in tow).
It’s quite a show, with rockin’ music, Jumbotrons overhead so Hutcherson can look you right in the eye, and plenty of jokes. Beneath the feel-good, down-home, upbeat surface is hardcore fundamentalism.
If you haven't had the transformational spiritual epiphany leading to personal acceptance of Jesus Christ (“born-again,” “saved” or “washed in the blood”) you're going to hell.
If you're living in sin and they find out or they if they catch on you're really an unrepentant queer, they'll call you out in church, make charges against you and escort your sinning, backsliding ass right out the door and shun you. I'm not kidding.
Increasingly a louder voice locally and nationally, Hutcherson was angered by King County Executive Ron Sims' and Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels' support of equal marriage rights for gays, so he organized “Mayday for Marriage” at Safeco Field last Spring featuring influential pro-family evangelical politico Dr. James Dobson.
The big show drew more than 20,000 to support the idea that legal equality for same-sex marriages is harmful to your moral health.
Hutcherson takes credit for the defeat of Sims (who is, ironically, also an ordained minister) in the state's 2004 gubernatorial primary. “We put the nail in the coffin,” he says.
In October just before the election, Hutcherson took “Mayday for Marriage” to the Mall in Washington D.C., where 140-170k (Hutcherson claims 250k) gathered to hear Dobson, zealous Republican gadfly Alan Keyes, Billy Graham's daughter Anne Graham Lotz and convicted Watergate felon Chuck Colson in favor of the Bush-supported same-sex marriage amendment.
Hutcherson's rallies were among the dozens of national events designed to mobilize religious conservatives in the 2004 presidential race.
“This a not civil rights issue,” he says. “This is not near what blacks went through. It's a sexual behavior issue.”
“I want to teach the church what I learned as an African-American, that is-you don't have to take it,” Hutcherson says. “We got just as many rights as anybody else and we have the advantage that God is on our side.”
~
His “Hutch Rush” mini-sermons can be heard (m-f ) on Seattle right-wing talk station, KTTH (770 AM) at 8:50 am just before Limbaugh. A Sunday sermonette can be heard 8:30-9 am also on KTTH.
Mr. Hood, what is your perspective on same-sex impregnation?
Posted by: Kook | April 25, 2005 at 09:52 PM
Sorry for posting so soon again, without a response yet.
But could I get your measured opinion on this blog entry? I have a feeling you would have good debate with this guy.
Rosenblog
Posted by: Kook | April 25, 2005 at 10:02 PM