Ken Hutcherson

Ken Hutcherson

Date of birth:	(1952-07-14) July 14, 1952
Place of birth:	Anniston, Alabama
Career information
Position(s):	Linebacker
College:	Livingston
NFL Draft:	1974 / Round: 4 / Pick: 97
Organizations
As player:
1974 1975	Dallas Cowboys San Diego Chargers
Playing stats at NFL.com

Kenneth Lee Hutcherson (born July 14, 1952) is a former American football linebacker in the National Football League who is now the pastor of the Antioch Bible Church in Kirkland, Washington, where he has been since 1985. His nickname from his NFL days is "The Hutch".

Football career

Hutcherson played linebacker for Livingston University (now the University of West Alabama) from 1970-73. He was a starting outside linebacker for the Tiger’s 1971 NAIA National Championship team, and was an All-American both his junior and senior seasons. He was the NAIA National Player of the Week in 1972 when he made 21 tackles against Southern State. Hutcherson was named GSC Defensive Player of the Year in 1972, and was an All-GSC and All-Alabama Small College selection in 1972 and 1973. Hutcherson was drafted in the fourth round by the Dallas Cowboys in 1974, and played five years in the NFL spending time with the Dallas Cowboys, San Diego Chargers, and Seattle Seahawks.

Pastoral career

After ending his football career, Hutcherson conducted theological studies at Cascade Bible College in Bellevue, Washington in 1979. After finishing his studies, he served eight years as director of high school ministries at Westminster Chapel in Bellevue. In 1984, he started Antioch Bible Church in Kirkland, Washington, along with Mark Webster and Dwight Englund. Hutcherson accepted the position of senior pastor in 1985 and was ordained in 1986.

He was once quoted on his church's website as saying, "The greatest need today in the church - which does not seem to be important in the average church - is the training of people in evangelism, discipleship and the responsibility they have for the church and responsibility they have for God."

Hutcherson is a frequent football guest caller on The Rush Limbaugh Show, and usually appears in around NFL playoff, and Super Bowl time. Rev. Hutcherson and Limbaugh are such close friends that he officiated Limbaugh's fourth wedding in June 2010 in Palm Beach, Florida.

Gay rights opposition

Gay rights as a civil rights movement

Ken Hutcherson strongly objects to suggestions that the current gay civil rights movement bears a resemblance to the African-American civil rights movement in the 1960s. An opinion piece by Hutcherson published in The Seattle Times on March 29, 2004, stated, "It has been said loudly and proudly that gay marriage is a civil rights issue. If that's the case, then gays would be the new African Americans. I'm here to tell you now, and hopefully for the last time, that the gay community is not the new African-American community." Hutcherson has been reported as saying that he is offended by those that say same-sex marriage is a civil rights issue and instead is “a moral and sexual preference issue,” because he believes that homosexuality is a choice and race is not. He has said, "I've met many ex-gays, but I've never met an ex-black."

On April 25, 2008 Hutcherson protested at a school hosting the National Day of Silence. He planned on organizing, and took an ad out in a local paper calling for, 1,000 people to protest Mount Si High School, the school his daughter attended, in Snoqualmie, Washington. The National Day of Silence brings attention to anti-LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender) name-calling, bullying and harassment in schools.

On March 2, 2006, Hutcherson and King County Executive Ron Sims, himself a Baptist Minister and a supporter of same-sex marriage, met at Seattle Town Hall to debate publicly the question "Is the gay rights movement the new civil rights movement?" The debate, sponsored by The Stranger was arranged as a dare and drew a crowd of around 800 people.

Gay anti-discrimination legislation

Hutcherson has repeatedly opposed state anti-discrimination laws. On February 9, 2006, Tim Eyman lodged referendum Initiative 65 which sought a public vote to repeal the Murray Anderson Civil Rights Bill before it could take effect on June 7, 2006. Hutcherson supported the initiative and conducted petition signature gathering at his Antioch Bible Church. When the June 6, 2006 deadline arrived the campaign announced they had failed to collect the 112,400 signatures required to qualify for the ballot.

Still focused on overturning anti-discrimination protection for gays and lesbians, Hutcherson lodged his own ballot initiative on January 19, 2007. Initiative 963 proposed removing any reference to sexual orientation or sexual preference from existing anti-discrimination legislation and required 224,800 valid signatures be collected by the July 6, 2007 deadline to qualify for the ballot.

On January 27, 2007, The Seattle Times reported that Hutcherson had allied with a network of churches, including Watchmen on the Walls, that are tied to conservative evangelical Slavic communities in Washington State and California that have been active in anti-gay causes. The stated purpose of this alliance was to collect signatures for initiative 963 to overturn the recently passed state law that banned discrimination based on sexual orientation.

On June 29, 2007, Hutcherson told The Seattle Times that he had dropped the initiative some months earlier at the urging of Pastor Joe Fuiten, who argued that the time was not right for the campaign and asked instead for his help in opposing domestic partnership rights for gay and lesbian couples.

Microsoft

In 2005, the Seattle weekly newspaper The Stranger reported that Hutcherson persuaded Microsoft to withdraw support for the Washington anti-discrimination bill that would have made it illegal to fire an employee due to their sexual orientation. Hutcherson had reportedly told the Microsoft general counsel that 700 evangelical Microsoft employees attend his church, and all of them opposed the bill. He added that if Microsoft did not withdraw support of the bill, he would organize a national boycott of the software maker. Sometime after the meeting Microsoft changed its long held position on the issue from support to neutral stating that anti-discrimination was not a priority for that legislative session.

A few weeks later, after furious protests from Microsoft employees and advocacy by GLEAM, Microsoft’s gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender employee resource group, the company reversed itself and pledged to support future anti-discrimination legislation.

The Anderson Murray Civil Rights Bill was passed in the Washington State House on January 20, 2006, in the Senate on January 27, 2006, and signed into law by Governor Christine Gregoire on January 31, 2006. When the bill was passed, Hutcherson again called for a boycott, but no such organized effort emerged.

On January 25, 2006, Hutcherson called for supporters to take action against Microsoft for reinstating its support of the Washington State Anti-Discrimination bill by driving down the company’s stock price. Hutcherson asked that supporters purchase one or two Microsoft shares over the following months with the goal of selling them on May 1, 2006. Market experts stated that the “buy-and-dump” plan had no realistic chance of affecting Microsoft stock while legal scholars warned that the plan could be considered illegal market manipulation. Microsoft maintained its support of the bill and on May 1, 2006 Microsoft shares closed up 14 cents on the previous day’s close.

On November 13, 2007, Hutcherson addressed the Microsoft Annual Stockholders meeting. During the question and answer session he referred to previous discussions with Microsoft executives regarding their support for anti-discrimination legislation in Washington State and threatened further action against the company without clearly specifying the policy position or activity he hopes to change. Hutcherson stated "I could work with you, or I could be your worst nightmare, because I am a black man with a righteous cause, with a host of powerful white people behind me...".

After Hutcherson's comments, one attendee asked what shareholders could do to help the company to oppose Hutcherson. Microsoft General Counsel Brad Smith responded, "As a company, we've had a clear policy with respect to the way we treat our people, and we believe in that policy. It's a policy that's founded on non-discrimination, it's a policy that we believe has served our employees well, it's served our shareholders well, and I think that was reflected last year when all of our shareholders were asked to vote on that policy, and over 97 percent of you and all of our other shareholders stood up and agreed with us. And I think that it is precisely in that form that shareholders have the opportunity to continue to make their views known, and we very much appreciate that support".

On November 16, 2007, an interview appeared in The Daily Telegraph, a UK newspaper, where Hutcherson described his plan to ask millions of evangelical activists, Orthodox religious and other allies, to purchase Microsoft shares and demand a return to 'traditional values'. He described Microsoft as just the first company to be targeted in a larger campaign which will attempt to force American corporations to support only biblically-based social policy positions. In the article Hutcherson alleged "There are 256 Fortune 500 companies alone pouring millions upon millions of dollars into pushing the homosexual agenda..." but he has yet to provide any evidence for his claims.

However, in accordance with a May 6, 2005 e-mail where Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer laid out guidelines and restrictions for future public policy engagement, the company has expressed no position on same-sex marriage, civil unions, or domestic partnership legislation at the Washington State or Federal levels.

In a January 12, 2008 radio interview on Sirius OutQ with Michelangelo Signorile, Hutcherson once again claimed that Microsoft was advocating in support of same-sex marriage.

On January 8, 2008, Hutcherson announced details of his "Buy Three, Donate One" campaign which asked supporters to purchase three shares of Microsoft stock, donate one share to the "AGN Financial Network," and prepare to vote on a Shareholder Proposal that would be presented at the next Microsoft Stockholders Annual meeting in November 2008.

Hate crimes legislation

On April 17, 2007, Hutcherson was scheduled to participate in a press conference hosted by Exodus International opposing passage of the federal Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2007. The event, to be held at the National Press Club, was intended to put pressure on lawmakers to drop the legislation which proposed adding sexual orientation and gender identity to the currently protected classes of race, color, religion and national origin. The press conference was cancelled in the wake of the Virginia Tech shootings. The Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2007 passed the House on May 3, 2007 by a vote of 237 to 180.

On June 18, 2007, Hutcherson and 29 other African-American pastors in the High Impact Leadership Coalition publicly opposed the Senate hate crimes bill renamed The Matthew Shepard Act on 1st Amendment grounds.

Same-sex marriage

On May 1, 2004, Hutcherson organized a "Mayday for Marriage" rally against marriage rights for lesbian and gay couples. The highly-publicized effort drew an estimated 20,000 supporters from around the Puget Sound region to Safeco Field in Seattle, Washington. Later, in October 2004, he organized another "Mayday for Marriage" rally in Washington, D.C. which attracted an estimated 140,000 participants. Comparing the “Mayday for Marriage” rally he organized in Washington D.C. to the Madrid train bombing by terrorists that killed 191 people, he said, "My idea here is to drop a spiritual bomb on D.C., like Spain, where they had the terrorist bomb."

After switching focus from opposing anti-discrimination legislation to fighting recognition of domestic partnerships in early 2007, Hutcherson claims that the Christian group who were in charge of the effort failed to follow through on their plans. Despite opposition from Hutcherson and Christian groups the Domestic Partnership bill passed the state legislature and was signed into law on April 21, 2007. Angered by the situation, Hutcherson has said he intends to force a state-wide debate on legal recognition for same-sex relationships which he and other opponents see as an incremental step towards securing same-sex marriage rights. Speaking with The Olympian, Hutcherson said “I am going to do something that deals with the main issue,” adding that he intends to provide broader political leadership for Christians that he believes has been absent in recent years.

Latvia controversy

On March 21, 2007, Seattle attorney Dave Coffman filed a complaint with the Federal Bureau of Investigation asking them to investigate whether or not Pastor Hutcherson violated federal law by claiming to be a White House "Special Envoy" on a 2007 trip to Latvia. Hutcherson claims his work and trip were sanctioned by the Bush White House. The trip was the centerpiece of a four-day anti-gay-rights "crisis conference" held in Latvia.

Hutcherson claims that the director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives Jay Hein appointed him as a "special envoy" for the Latvia trip, where he appeared with Scott Lively, an opponent of LGBT civil rights and author, with Kevin Abrams, of the book The Pink Swastika which purports to document the role of homosexuals in the formation of the Nazi Party and the administration of the Third Reich.

According to Eli Sanders of the Seattle alternative weekly newspaper The Stranger, who spoke to an agent at the FBI, the agency does investigate allegations that people have represented themselves as speaking for the White House.

Hutcherson has claimed that he was made a Special Envoy for Adoptions, Family Values, Religious Freedom, and Medical Relief by the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives.

White House spokesperson Alyssa J. McLenning communicated to the newspaper that Hutcherson was never given the title of Special Envoy. In her statement, McLenning wrote "The White House Office of Faith-based and Community Initiatives did not give Hutcherson the title, 'Special Envoy for Adoptions, Family Values, Religious Freedom, and Medical Relief.' The White House did not give Hutcherson any other titles and did not coordinate with Hutcherson on his recent trip to Latvia."

Hutcherson claims the White House is lying and told The Stranger that they should speak with Hein, who met with him at the White House and in Seattle.

Hutcherson claims to have met with Hein at least twice in person about this partnership, once in January 2007 in Seattle, and once in February 2007 at the White House. Hutcherson said of the title and partnership relating to his work in Latvia, "In my meetings, I can represent as being with them (the Bush White House) and having the power I need to get things done."

Hutcherson claims there is a video that was shot after a meeting on 8 February 2007 at the White House between himself; Jay Hein; and Alexei Ledyaev, pastor of New Generation Church in Riga, Latvia.

Hutcherson said this White House meeting was the second of two meetings he had with Hein about his plans in Latvia. The first meeting, according to Hutcherson, took place on January 18, 2007 during a conference in Seattle on faith-based initiatives that was attended by Hein.

"That was when he made his first commitment to me and said it was a done deal," Hutcherson told me. Hutcherson describes the "done deal" as "our partnership." Hutcherson claims requested the first meeting with Hein because "I just wanted Faith-Based to give me the power to do what I needed to do" and that "the Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives did just that." according to Hutcherson.

Hutcherson claims that in the video from the second meeting on February 8, 2007 in Washington D.C., the three men—Hutcherson, Hein, and Ledyaev—are standing on the White House lawn answering questions from a Latvian television reporter. Hutcherson claims the video will show that Hein met with him, knew of his new title, and approved of his mission to Latvia. Hutcherson told the Seattle Stranger newspaper "I’m gonna prove that I had those meetings, I’m gonna prove that I got that title behind me, and I’m gonna show you the video that says I was coming to Latvia and the purpose why."

Publications

• Hutcherson, Ken, "Here Comes the Bride : The Church: What We Are Meant to Be". 2000. ISBN 1-57673-359-9
• Hutcherson, Ken, "Before All Hell Breaks Loose : Preparing for the Coming Perilous Times". 2001. ISBN 1-57673-793-4
• Hutcherson, Ken, "Enough Faith: You've Already Got What It Takes to Make a Difference". 2006. ISBN 1-59052-600-7

External links

• Bio at Antioch Bible Church