All posts tagged 'ken hutcherson'

ken hutcherson, catholic, blog-on-blog

Source: Olympian, Seattle Post Intelligencer, Associated Press via Seattle Times

Hutch: Qblog, Qnews

OLYMPIA, Wash. -- An anti-gay Redmond preacher was among more than 500 people who turned out Sunday the of the Washington Capitol to protest a sign that a group of atheists erected as part of the holiday display inside the building.

"The No. 1 thing is, we want the state of Washington and the governor to represent everyone in the state," said the Rev. Kenneth Hutcherson, according to The Olympian. "But just because you must represent everyone in the state doesn't mean that you put up with intolerance from the people that you represent."

Hutcherson is the pastor of Antioch Bible Church in Redmond. He has, in years past, allied himself with anti-gay activists in Latvia who have sought to shut down gay-rights protests in that country.

Last Spring, Hutcherson organized a protest against an anti-bullying observance at Mount Si High School in Snoqualmie.

As the Seattle Post-Intelligencer's Strange Bedfellows points out, "This is the same guy that has for years been publicly denouncing all efforts to expand gay rights. He has been the face, and the voice behind the megaphone for intolerance."

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ken hutcherson, mount si

Source: SnoValley Star

Hutch: Qblog, Qnews

Snoqualmie, Wash. -- The Mount Si High School teacher who sparked a town controversy by asking a question of right-wing preacher Ken Hutcherson during a school assembly is leaving the school in Snoqualmie.

Related in seaQwa: Mount Si tolerance controversy

Kit McCormick accepted a position at Seattle School District's Garfield High School in July, SnoValley Star reports.

McCormick told the Star that a conservative parent-founded group, Coalition to Defend Education (CODE), influenced her decision to leave. She described the group as a "closed-minded, very right wing, and vocal minority" that has made it more difficult to teach at the school.

"After the events of last year, I felt I wasn't able to work effectively at Mount Si," McCormick said.

During the 2008 Martin Luther King Jr. assembly at Mount Si, McCormick asked guest speaker Hutcherson how he could stand for equality if he didn't stand for gay rights. After the assembly, Hutcherson asked the school to fire both McCormick and another teacher, George Potratz, who booed Hutcherson at the assembly.

McCormick's role in the public eye intensified in April during the Day of Silence, a day in which about 200 Mount Si students chose to remain mute to promote tolerance and draw attention to the harassment gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people face.

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state_wa, ken hutcherson, mount si

Hutch: Qblog, Qnews

Pastor Ken Hutcherson believes that a challenge to his authority, as happened in January at Mount Si High School, constitutes discrimination, but he just can't get anyone to listen.

He sent this message to his "Prayer Warriors" today:

This past Sunday I was preaching on Romans 2:11 which says God is no respecter of persons. I was informed last week that this is not true of Governor Christine Gregoire and the State of Washington. There is extreme favoritism in this state.

I was informed by Rosalund Jenkins, head of the Commission on African American Affairs for the State of Washington, that if I was the black pastor of a black church instead of a black pastor of a white church, I would have more clout to say I was discriminated against at Mt. Si High School at the Martin Luther King Day Assembly.

I was informed that a homosexual is part of the Commission on African American Affairs so I can forget about fighting the issues of racism and homosexuality.

I was informed that even though she is head of the Commission on African American Affairs for the state of Washington she does not work for black people. She works for Governor Chris Gregoire because hers is not an elected position, she is a gubernatorial appointee.

I was informed that if I continue to go down the road of racism and homosexuality, I'm fighting against the white power structure of the State of Washington and I don't have a chance of winning.

As I was talking to her, it dawned on me that the NAACP must be controlled and owned by the white power structure of the State of Washington as well.

I filed a grievance with the NAACP and now I know why James Bible, President of the local chapter doesn't return my phone calls. The only member of the NAACP who has any intestinal fortitude is Rev. Phyllis Beaumonte. She has constantly said that they are supposed to investigate any complaint brought by a member, yet the President has put this off week after week after week.

Pray for Rev. Beaumonte. She is trying to get the NAACP to do the right thing.

Continue to pray for me as I stand on Biblical Truth and the Word. I was informed by the head of the Commission on African American Affairs for the State of Washington that Gov. Gregoire has established a special place for homosexuals in her administration and the State of Washington.

This will be an uphill battle but I am willing to fight trusting in God until we attain victory.
Pastor Hutch

ken hutcherson, mount si

Hutch: Qblog, Qnews

Cable gabber Chris Matthews offers a segment each day on his Hardball show that he calls the "Big Number." He takes some number from a poll or any other source and twists and turns it in various ways.

So, the big number for Ken Hutcherson this weekend is 1/10. That's the fraction of the number he was calling for who responded Friday to his call to demonstrate bigotry by harassing a high school that dared to allow its students to quietly demonstrate for tolerance.

Hutcherson had made a very public and widely publicized call for 1000 "Prayer Warriors" to join him on the grounds of Mount Si High School in Snoqualmie to protest students observing the Day of Silence. By most estimates, 100 showed up. One-tenth the size of the army of intolerance he'd predicted.

In the PI on Friday, columnist Robert L. Jamieson, Jr called it perfectly:

Hutcherson & Co. frame the Day of Silence like so many fiery evangelicals do -- as a stunt to promote the gay and lesbian lifestyle, as feel-good propaganda that disrupts the school day and as a recruiting tool.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

Hutcherson, of course, has a right to assemble outside the public school and harass kids.

But he ought to know that no one is running around schools of America hollering, "Sign up to be gay today!"

The Day of Silence is about showing respect for others, a powerful and transcendent tenet.

In a sense, what the students are doing is no different than a symbolic silence to bring attention to U.S. soldiers dying in Iraq or famine in the Third World.

The issue only becomes grossly distorted when morality warriors bang the drums of righteous indignation.

When it comes to homosexuality, Hutcherson seeks any scintilla to justify his holy war, whether that means lambasting Microsoft for supporting gay rights in Olympia or rounding up a God squad to take on teens.

Christian bigotry -- like bigotry of every kind -- gets old, fast.

The Redmond's preacher's bigotry appears to have gotten old very fast for the people of Snoqualmie.

Jamieson concludes,

Hutcherson may think he's making a moral statement Mount Si needs to hear. But the message he's shouting from his mountaintop suggests intolerance is a Christian value, blindly embraced by prayer warriors everywhere.

A column today in the other paper has nothing to do with Hutcherson or with the Mount Si demonstration, but it reinforces this message. In a syndicated column from the Miami Herald printed today by the Seattle Times, Leonard Pitts Jr. writes about civil rights icon James Lawson -- a former President of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and the man who invited Martin Luther King, Jr. to Memphis to support striking sanitation workers.

Pitts describes Lawson as a preacher who is proud to be out of step with what passes for Christianity in too many American churches. (Including Hutcherson's, of course.) He is scheduled to speak today at a conference sponsored by Soulforce, a group that fights church-based homophobia.

Pitts writes that an insidious brand of intolerance cloaked in faith has lately made inroads in black America.

"King's daughter, Bernice, has marched against gay rights," he writes. "Others have peevishly rejected the idea that there are parallels between the black struggle and the gay one."

Hutcherson, of course, is one of those "others" and his message has a certain resonance (although, obviously, not nearly as much resonance as he believes he has) because he's a black pastor of a mostly white fundamentalist church.

Pitts writes,

Lawson finds the antipathy appalling.

"To unite with white Christian fundamentalism like Pat Robertson is an absolute disgrace. For black people to pretend that kind of Christian fundamentalism, which justified slavery and justifies racism, is a colleague in anything is to be blind to the realities that we're facing.

"We who have suffered and do suffer should be the most sensitive to the suffering of others. We don't want this undeserved suffering put on us, and we should therefore, clearly, not participate in putting such suffering on others. We ought to know better."

Lawson knows his brand of Christianity is not the kind that nowadays dominates political discourse. Does it trouble him to be out of step?

"No. A part of the religion of Jesus is to be on the right side of history and the right side of God, especially when others are on the wrong side." Those who preach intolerance "are the ones out of step. You have to be patient and they'll catch up.

"Many of the black pastors were outraged when King, in '67, declared against the Vietnam War. Well, now, great numbers of the clergy are aware that war is a violation of the gospel of Jesus, and they are opposed to the Iraq war. They caught up."

Some did, at least. Ours is still an era wherein war, hatred and intolerance often wear a clerical collar. As Lawson puts it, "Much of Christianity in the United States has been more influenced by violence and sexism and racism and greed than by the teachings of Jesus."

That's the kind of message that two pastors and a "Christian mother" tried to convey Friday at the Snoqualmie Public Library in a press conference arranged by GLSEN.

All of the panelists -- most of whom live in Snoqualmie -- insisted that their community is tolerant, that it's better represented by the students who went to school Friday at Mount Si and gave silent witness to tolerance and acceptance.

The big number for Hutcherson seems to support their view of the town.

state_wa, org_glsen, ken hutcherson, bullying, mount si

Source: MyNorthwest.com KIRO Newsradio, Qblog, Seattle Times, KING5 News
SNOQUALMIE, Wash. -- Ken Hutcherson called last week for 1,000 to join him for a protest outside Mount Si High School this morning. He objects to a student-led observance called "Day of Silence" that's designed to raise awareness of anti-gay bullying.

The numbers that heeded his call were far lower according to all estimates. Associated Press put the count at "about 250 protesters and counter-protesters," but it's number appears to be generous by more than two times.

AP's story emphasizes that the protesters "have been yelling and arguing outside Mount Si High School in Snoqualmie about gay and lesbian students."

According to the Seattle Times, the "protest against the Day of Silence organized by the Rev. Ken Hutcherson of the Antioch Bible Church in Redmond drew about 100 followers. He had placed a newspaper ad summoning 'prayer warriors' to his protest."

KING 5 video: Gay, anti-gay demonstrators face off outside Snohomish school

Inside the school, students wore t-shirts and arm bands expressing their views about the National Day of Silence in support of gay and lesbian students, but outside, this day of silence was anything but quiet, KING5 TV reported. 

"Once we enter the building we will no longer be speaking," Austin Anderson, a student, told KING5. 

Anderson said his silence is in support of gays and lesbians who face discrimination and cannot speak out themselves.

Students participating in the demonstration were given strict guidelines about how to handle themselves and to report any kind of harassment.  If they're asked a question in class, they are required to answer.  Teachers are not allowed to take part in the day of silence.

Mount Si's principal estimated roughly 10 percent of the student population may be gay, KING5 reported. 

The principal told the station that no serious harassment issues have arisen in the last several months and calls the demonstration a form of expression which does not violate school policy against protests. 

Concerns over protests at their school compelled about 500 students - about one-third of the student body - to stay away from Mount Si High School.

Many anti-gay groups, including Focus on Family, have been urging parents for a month to hold their kids out of school as a way of protesting the Day of Silence. Focus on Family argues that many schools lose money when students are absent.

But outside of the school, adults gathered to talk and talk loudly.

On one side were supporters of students inside the school expressing their support of gays and lesbians.  On the other side were those protesting the school district for allowing the student-lead observance. Police kept both sides apart and tried to control the crowd with yellow tape.

"They want to have the day of silence?  Be like other clubs. Do it before or after school, not messing up the classroom," said Rev. Ken Hutcherson of Antioch Bible Church in Redmond.  "For anyone to say that the Day of Silence does not interrupt the school, they're dead, blind or just plain prejudice."

Jim Valley of KIRO Newsradio and Patricia Manning Smith of KING5 filed the most complete reports.

A hundred or so Hutcherson supporters came out to protest the day of silence at the school, Valley reports. KING5 TV also estimated the crowd of anti-gay protesters at about 100.

"I don't see any days for religious freedom," Hutcherson is quoted as saying. The Redmond preacher, who has a daughter at the school, says any gay rights demonstrations should have been before or after classes.

Valley reports that about half as many people came out to defend the Day of Silence. He notes that the pro-DO
S protesters "were pretty vocal". Valley reports that one young man held a sign up next to the pastor that said, "THROW ROCKS HERE."

The sign holder -- "Johnny" -- told Valley, "I just wanted to show him how it is, how hurtful it is. He got very angry when he saw it and he was very hurt. I think I almost started to see him cry."

A student told KING5, "I think the adults out here are acting like 5th graders."

The smaller estimate of pro-Hutcherson demonstrators was echoed by parents who gathered later in the morning across town in a meeting room at Snoqualmie Library for a press conference about the Day of Silence observance.

Local ministers and parents joined members of GLSEN Washington, a group that supports Day of Silence observances, at the library. About 30 supporter of DOS gathered to listen along with about a dozen reporters who passed in and out after getting an appropriate sound-bite.

According to one of the parents who was at the library press conference, "about 100 or 120" parents gathered at the school long before Hutcherson showed up. She said that the parents quietly lined the sidewalks near school entrances wearing rainbow ribbons.

"We stood silently, which no dialog," said the woman who described herself as a committed Christian parent.

KIRO Newsradio's Valley counted a smaller number in the welcoming group. "About 50 gay rights supporters wearing armbands and carrying rainbow flags quietly demonstrated outside the school as classes started."

Full article: Gay, Anti-Gay Demonstrations Held At Mt. Si High School | KIRO Seattle
Gay, anti-gay demonstrators face off at Snoqualmie school | Seattle Times
100+ parents show quiet support for Day of Silence at Mount Si | seaQwa's Qblog
Protesters face off outside Snoqualmie, WA high school | KING5 News

state_wa, ken hutcherson, bullying, mount si

Source: Seattle Times, KIRO Newsradio
Seattle Times catches up with the controversy that a Redmond pastor has worked to create at Mount Si High School in Snoqualmie by interviewing former student Neil Lequia.

As a gay-rights activist, he's helping to organize a news conference in support of students participating in the national Day of Silence, an event meant to highlight the silence gay students say they often must maintain at school, the Times reports.

As a gay teenager growing up in the Snoqualmie Valley, he remembers "the bullies," popular, athletic boys vamping in the hall and pretending to flirt with him. He was part of the school's first Day of Silence in 2006, in part to call attention to the harassment.

Nineteen now, and two years out of high school, Lequia told the Times, "Even being in the closet was hard there."

While the Day of Silence will be observed at more than 200 high schools around the state, Mount Si is expected to be the flash point for protests and counterprotests.

Hutcherson and his wife took out a full page ad in Wednesday's Snoqualmie Valley Record that called for 1,000 prayer warriors to gather outside the front of the school Friday morning.

"If they want to do something, fine," Hutcherson told KIRO Radio's Dori Monson  yesterday. "Just make it before school or after school, like the Christians have to do. If they want to meet, they meet before school."

Students who participate in the day remain silent in recognition of students who remain silent about their sexual orientation because of fear of prejudice or retaliation.

Some parents and community members who support the Day of Silence say they'll gather before school and stand quietly as students arrive.

A coalition of gay-rights groups, including the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network, for which Lequia works, and the Safe Schools Coalition, have organized the news conference later in the morning across town to talk about the need for respect and a safe environment for gay students.

Inside the school, about 200 students have taken the training administrators required to ensure the Day of Silence doesn't disrupt classes or coerce anyone into participating, as critics charge happened in the first two years the event was held here.

As a devout Mormon from an extended Snoqualmie Valley family, Lequia resisted his own sexual identity. He fasted and prayed for his homosexuality to be removed from his body, he said. By the time he was a sophomore in high school, he said, he was eating about four meals a week.

Lequia was in the audience at one of the School Board meetings when an uncle questioned why an entire day was devoted to gays. A cousin said he'd left Mount Si "because of gays." Neither acknowledged him.

"We need this controversy to show we need a change," Lequia said. "As much hurt and damage this has caused me, it's for the better of Mount Si."

Full article: Ex-student returns to Mount Si to support controversial gay-rights Day of Silence | Seattle Times
Pastor to protest day of silence at Mount Si High School | MyNorthwest (KIRO)

state_wa, ken hutcherson, mount si

Source: KOMO 1000

Hutch: Qblog, Qnews

While other stations in the local Fisher conglomerate have been endlessly touting Pastor Ken's hopes to "get 'em" at Mount Si, good ol' Ken Schram is his usual curmudgeonly self as he points out the absurdities for KOMO 1000:

One-thousand "prayer warriors."

That's the word from Rev. Ken "God told me to smite homosexuals" Hutcherson.

The pastor of Redmond's Antioch Bible Church wants "1,000 prayer warriors" out at Mt. Si High School in Snoqualmie Friday.

He's going after all the kids taking part in the Day of Silence, held in support of gay and lesbian students.

I guess Hutcherson figures God wants him to teach all those tolerant students a lesson in the finer points of prejudice and discrimination.

Such teachings are right up Hutcherson's alley.

He's all gung-ho when it comes to keeping gays and lesbians under the heel of society's boot.

Given his fight against any and all gay rights laws, Hutcherson obviously has no problem with high school kids being harassed for being homosexual, and no issue whatsoever with them being denied jobs and housing when they grow up.

It doesn't surprise me that he plans a protest in response to teenagers trying to turn back that tide of hate and intolerance.

Reassuringly, it doesn't seem as if the Mt. Si students are even a little intimidated by the blustery Hutcherson.

Good for them.

Not so good for all those prayer warriors.

Full article: Ken Schram: 1,000 prayers for intolerance | KOMO 1000 News Radio

state_wa, ken hutcherson, mount si

by Robin Evans
Tens of thousands of students at colleges, high schools, and some middle schools are expected to participate this Friday, April 25, in an observance of the National Day of Silence.

Now in its twelfth year, the observance is meant to "bring attention to anti-LGBT name-calling, bullying and harassment on campus," but the goal of day is to make schools safer for all students, not just LGBTQ students.

The local observances of Day of Silence are usually organized by students in each school, but are supported and encouraged by Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN), a national group with local chapters that advocates for gay students and safe schools. The group promotes the annual Day of Silence and asks students to register their schools if they plan to participate but does not organize in individual schools.

Hutch: Qblog, Qnews

But this year's student-led observances are, more than ever before, being actively opposed by a coalition of right-wing groups that urge parents to do their best to stop the observance of an anti-bullying day at local schools.

One of those groups even highlights the plans of a Seattle-area preacher, Ken Hutcherson, who has announced plans to stage what he hopes will be a large protest of the day at a suburban high school that his daughter attends.

The right-wing group Mission: America advises parents to hold their children out of school during the day, and also recommends:

Encourage your church leadership to follow the bold example of Pastor Ken Hutcherson who is vocally opposing "Day of Silence" in his community in Redmond, Washington. Let your light shine by spreading the word to your church and neighbors, and explain that most school districts lose money for every absence.

On a page of the Day of Silence website that is designed to counter some common misrepresentations of the observance that are made by that group and its allies, GLSEN emphasizes that even non-gay students can be targeted by anti-gay bullying:

Slurs such as 'faggot' and 'dyke' are commonplace in school. The Day of Silence is an example of students, from middle school to college, working together proactively to bring attention to the anti-LGBT name-calling, bullying and harassment experienced by LGBT and straight students alike.

This year, more than ever, Day of Silence observances have taken a higher profile in many communities where the anti-bullying efforts have become a target of national and local anti-gay groups like Hutcherson's church and Mission: America who are urging parents to pressure schools and school districts to ban the anti-bullying observances.

In Charlotte, SC -- to take just one of dozens of examples -- a school board member introduced a resolution this month that would have forgiven absences from school by students whose parents wanted them to skip school to protest DOS.

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ken hutcherson, watchmen, mount si

Hutch: Qblog, Qnews

King shooting

Ken Hutcherson has asked his "Prayer Warriors" to join him on April 25 as he stages a protest of the Day of Silence observance at Mount Si High School.

This is the message he sent to the Antioch Bible Church mailing list today:

Prayer Warriors, it's time to put on your knee pads and start praying! I am organizing a protest of Mt. Si High School and the Snoqualmie Valley School District. We will be protesting at Mt. Si High School on the Day of Silence, April 25 at 10:00 am. We have taken out a huge ad in the Snoqualmie Valley newspaper which will run next Wednesday. Please pray that over 1,000 people will participate.

Enough is enough. We have tried to work with the School District and they will not hear us. They will hear this protest. Pray it up! It's time to make a moral stand in our public schools.

We suppose, then, that the "moral stand" he speaks of is a stand in favor of bullying since Day of Silence is designed to help put a stop to that.

Related in Qnews: Right wing groups try to silence the Day of Silence (4/21)

According to the event website, the National Day of Silence, to be observed this year on April 25, "brings attention to anti-LGBT name-calling, bullying and harassment in schools. This year's event will be held in memory of Lawrence King, a California 8th-grader who was shot and killed Feb. 12 by a classmate because of his sexual orientation and gender expression."

Hutcherson has been engaged in an ongoing battle with the school where his daughter is enrolled ever since a teacher there gently protested his pro-discrimination stance during a talk he gave for Martin Luther King, Jr. Day.

Protesting Day of Silence events has become a significant part of the broad anti-gay agenda. When a poster for the school's Gay-Straight Alliance appeared in a school hallway, Hutcherson declared to the Prayer Warrior list that it meant "war." Several expensive lawsuits have been filed against schools throughout the country to stop the observances.

And all that makes it worthwhile to post again the public service announcement made by Lance Bass and released today by GLSEN, the organization that supports Day of Silence observances. 

ken hutcherson, gay news, bigotry, org_glsen, ken hutcherson, bullying, mount si