Best preacher on TV
Posted on 05/02/2005 3:15:13 AM PDT by infocats
REDMOND, Wash., April 29 - Before he became a born-again Christian and later a rising national star in the world of black evangelical ministers, the Rev. Ken Hutcherson started playing football because, he said, it was the best way he could think of to "hurt white people."
Dr. Hutcherson, a husky former linebacker for three National Football League teams who goes fishing with Rush Limbaugh and raises Rottweilers ("the bigger, the meaner, the better," he said of his pets), does not talk that way anymore about whites, saying his conversion to Christianity as a teenager changed all that. And a majority of the 3,500 members of his megachurch, which is based in this tidy Seattle suburb and high-tech hub, is white, as is his wife.
With a thundering charisma that makes him a hero to some and a gay-bashing bully to others, he has taken on the white mayor of Seattle, a prominent black county executive and the Washington State Legislature. In his mission to stop the legalization of gay marriage, Dr. Hutcherson has accused gay rights activists of trying to hijack and sully the civil rights movement by their comparison of the right of gays and lesbians to marry to the civil rights struggle he lived through as a poor child in Alabama in the 1950's and 60's.
Now Dr. Hutcherson, 52, known as "Hutch," and by his self-chosen nickname, "the black man," claims to be the person who forced Microsoft, situated near his Antioch Bible Church offices, to withdraw its support of a gay rights bill before the State Legislature, one it had supported the two previous years.
Dr. Hutcherson had threatened to organize a national boycott of Microsoft if it backed the legislation this year. The antidiscrimination bill was defeated by one vote in the State Senate on April 21.
But officials at Microsoft vehemently deny that the minister had anything to do with their decision not to support the bill this year; gay rights groups and employees have since criticized Microsoft, which had long enjoyed a reputation as one of the nation's most gay-friendly companies.
"We respect Dr. Hutcherson's right to his beliefs and opinions, but he does not speak for Microsoft, and he certainly does not set Microsoft's legislative agenda," said Mark Murray, a company spokesman. "We're proud of our antidiscrimination policies and benefits for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender employees, and we are committed to diversity at every level of our company."
Microsoft officials said they were re-evaluating their legislative priorities and had decided to take a "neutral" stance on the bill long before a high-level company official met twice with Dr. Hutcherson over his concerns that the company was going to support it.
In a style that is typically blunt (and, his detractors say, typically intimidating), Dr. Hutcherson described Microsoft's version of the events as "a flat-out lie."
Asked if he thought that he alone could have changed the giant corporation's mind, Dr. Hutcherson said in an interview Friday: "I don't think. I know."
He continued: "If I got God on my side, what's a Microsoft? What's a Microsoft? It's nothing."
If there is any question about Dr. Hutcherson's intolerance of dissent or disobedience - one that is infused with a stinging sense of humor - it could be answered quickly by a glance at the mini-refrigerator in his office. Next to his chair, which is submerged under a lavish white sheepskin cover, a sign on the fridge says, "Warning: I have licked the tops of all my Snapples - Hutch. * And I have tested positive for anthrax."
He is close to some of the nation's best-known Christian conservatives, including Dr. James C. Dobson, chairman of Focus on the Family, whom he calls "Dr. D," and over the last year he has organized rallies in Seattle and Washington, D.C., drawing tens of thousands of opponents of same-sex marriage.
There is little doubt, from hearing Dr. Hutcherson tell it, that he believes not only in the power of God, but also in the power of "Hutch," especially when it comes to going up against companies like Microsoft - or anyone else, for that matter.
"God plus Hutch is enough," said the minister, who stands 6 feet 2 inches, weighs 260 pounds and has a shaved head and a thick goatee streaked with a splash of white.
He added: "I want to be to Christianity what Gretzky was to hockey, what Beckham is to soccer, what Jordan was to basketball, what Martin Luther King was to African-American rights, what the Pope was to Poland. I want to be that to Christianity."
By trusting God, he said, he hopes for "great things" and "that I will be the most feared man in America, not because of me, but because of who I got on my side."
As even some of the church members say, there is good reason to fear Dr. Hutcherson. The church's motto is "black and white in a gray world."
On Sunday mornings, a half-dozen trailers pull up to Lake Washington High School in nearby Kirkland, filled with risers, microphones and other equipment, turning a school parking lot into what looks like a staging area for a rock concert. Antioch, which has offices but not its own church building, holds its rollicking, multimedia Sunday services at the school's gymnasium.
Dr. Hutcherson is known for publicly chastising and excommunicating members if he finds out they are sinning, calling adulterers, for example, up to the pulpit and demanding they repent, congregants said.
"And if they don't want to repent of it, he'll let them know that this is not the church for you," said John Stachofsky, 42, a longtime friend of Dr. Hutcherson and a member of the church who goes bird and deer hunting with him.
Many African-American ministers and conservative Christians share Dr. Hutcherson's opposition to same-sex marriage, which he calls "the greatest danger to America." But Dr. Hutcherson also often criticizes gay rights activists for drawing comparisons between their quest for equal rights and antidiscrimination laws and the struggles of other groups facing prejudice.
"You tell me what I went through as an African-American, when they talk about discrimination, compared to what gays go through with discrimination - it's the difference between night and day, not even close," Dr. Hutcherson said. "I even get upset when people say, 'Well, you got to understand what they go through.' Not when they've chosen to do what they do. They can stop choosing what to do what they do, and they can hide it anytime they want. They can hide their homosexuality. Could I take a 'don't ask don't tell' policy as an African-American? I could try even to pretend I was Puerto Rican, but I'm still going to get blasted for my skin color."
Dr. Hutcherson's views have earned him a fast-growing stable of enemies and critics.
"He came across as a bully, somebody who was threatening people, someone who was using the Scriptures, not for love but for hate," said Ed Murray, an openly gay state legislator from Seattle, a practicing Roman Catholic and a sponsor of the antidiscrimination bill.
Mr. Murray said he heard Dr. Hutcherson testify at a House hearing against the bill last February. Two Microsoft employees testified on behalf of the bill, prompting Dr. Hutcherson to demand the two meetings with Microsoft and to threaten the boycott. Microsoft officials have said the employees were testifying as private individuals, not on behalf of the company.
"I think he didn't so much as change Microsoft's mind as he caught them off guard," said Mr. Murray, who has also said that Microsoft officials told him Dr. Hutcherson had a role in their decision not to support the bill this year. "I think he was successful in throwing a ball at them and that they fumbled."
Ron Sims, the King County executive, has been a target of Dr. Hutcherson's protests because of his support for gay marriage. Mr. Sims, who is black, said he strongly disagreed with the minister on the civil rights question.
"I don't think that civil rights is the province of any particular group," said Mr. Sims, who earlier this year publicly invited six same-sex couples to sue him for the right to marry in King County, a case that is now being decided by the State Supreme Court and could determine whether gay men and lesbians can marry in Washington state.
"African-American homophobia is just another form of discrimination," he said.
Best preacher on TV
He is still a bully. And I'd tell him to his face.
His sermon after 9/11 was astonishing.
Ed Murray, an openly gay state legislator from Seattle, a practicing Roman Catholic and a sponsor of the antidiscrimination bill.
What does Mr. Murray's Bishop have to say about this?
And he hangs out with Rush Limbaugh?
A very conservative and Christian friend of mine at work surprised me one day when, in a discussion about gay marriage, he actually supportd it. As dumbfounded as I was, I asked him why and he had a surprising answer. As you said, most gay 'couples' have high disposable incomes. If they were allowed to 'marry' then the marriage penalty would kick in and they wold have to pay more in taxes than they would if they stayed 'single.' An interesting idea, but not an idea I support.
In Nazi Germany genocide was a culturally accepted practice. Your point?
My point was that your statement above was factually untrue.
Thanks for the info.
Whew! For a minute there I thought "Megachurch" was some new open-source operating system.
Then you should have said that there were times when homosexuality was not regarded as a sexual perversion. My point is that a perversion is always a perversion, regardless of its cultural acceptance.
You are incorrect on both counts.
(1) Greeks cherished their wives and held them to be far more than vehicles for heirs. Read Antigone and then slander the Greeks like this again.
No slander intended, nor was I defending homosexuality. Like gravity, it is what it is.
(2) Pederasty was viewed by Greeks as being a recent and decadent innovation practiced by the idle rich in wealthy cities like Athens and Corinth - not as a typical or widespread phenomenon of their culture.
The idle rich such as Alexander the Great, inagueably one of the greatest commanders of all time, and his troops, many if not all of whom had male lovers serving along side them?
And this was not only true of the ancient Greeks. The Persians and Eruscans also widely practiced male on male love.
You have just got to stop looking at the entire span of global history through the lens of current Judaeo/Christian/Moslem morality because the results will be highly skewed.
It is ONLY a perversion if it is not culturally accepted. If it IS culturally accepted, by definition it is NOT a perversion.
They were, generally speaking, completely amoral in sexual matters.
Many discreditable pseudo-historians use this to assert that Alexander, among others, was homosexual.
Gravity is a law provable by experiment.
Your uninformed opinion of the Greek family of the classical period is disproven by the facts.
The idle rich such as Alexander the Great
Alexander was not rich? Are you sure you want to maintain such a silly stance?
his troops, many if not all of whom had male lovers
LOL! The average Greek farmer could afford to have a kept male lover follow him around on campaign?
Admit it: you know nothing of warfare, or anything really, of the classical period. While I am certain that wealthy, debauched noblemen in Alexander's officer corps probably molested members of their retinue, what you are proposing is preposterous.
The Persians and Eruscans also widely practiced male on male love.
The Persians of late antiquity and the Etruscans of the Roman regnal period were famously cultures of great wealth and decadence.
The Romans who conquered the debauched Etruscans and practically erased their memory from the earth abominated sodomy.
The pattern by now should be obvious: when a culture creates enough wealth to enable the highborn and the rich to act immorally without any real consequences that they can't pay their way out of, immorality begins to flourish.
The Greeks, the Romans, the Etruscans, the Persians, the English, the Americans, etc. did not start out life as world powers by being degenerates.
The only practical knowledge of warfare that I have is my service in Vietnam. Other than than, any knowledge that I may or may not posses comes from my reading of the Greek Classics and other biographies of the period, and my fascination with the History Channel. Am I an expert? Of course not, nor did I every imply that I was. However, neither do I view the world through ideologically driven lenses.
Of course you do.
No one who actually read Greek classics would see Greek women merely as breeding stock.
It takes a special kind of intentional blinker to ignore the role of women in Greek society.
It has nothing to do with how I see/saw Greek women; I was merely stating (albeit perhaps the cartoon meta version) of how the class of men who had male lovers saw them.
And yes, I actually read many, if not all, of the Greek Classics including Plato, Socrates, Sophocles, Homer....
There's your problem. The current media culture by and large is obsessed with bringing every period and personage down to their level. There must be no heroes or examples of true virtue, for to admit this is to admit that they themselves are less than heroic in their chosen lifestyles. Therefore, to put it bluntly, they revise history to make it more palatable to the current culture. Everybody was a homosexual, don't you know?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.