Box Turtle Bulletin

Hutcherson’s Wacky Priorities

Timothy Kincaid

May 9th, 2008

Every pastor knows that there are certain Sundays in which attendance will be high. Christmas and Easter, for example, will draw those who identify as Christian but generally find other things a higher priority at church time on Sunday mornings.

Another day in which visitors are expected is Mother’s Day, when dutiful children make Mom happy by going to church with her before brunch.

Some churches have a liturgical calendar that establishes themes for each Sunday accross the denomination. But non-liturgical pastors tend to strategize their sermons on ‘Visitor Sundays’ so that they appeal to irregular attendees and so that they fit with the theme of the day.

For example, on Christmas a pastor might talk about Christ coming to the world and the change that Jesus made on history. Or he might discuss the sacrifice of His parents, the humbleness of His birth, or even the persistence of the Magi. So too would a pastor generally find Mother’s Day a time to celebrate the special recognition of mothers in the Bible.

But whatever the theme, on Sundays that are likely to draw visitors, a thoughtful pastor will avoid esoteric doctrines or the minutia of theolgical denominational differences. And while some fire-and-brimstone preachers will take the opportunity to call down God’s judgment on the sinner in the pew, most will avoid a sermon that is likely to frighten away or alienate a non-believer.

This Sunday is Mother’s Day. And in honor of that event, Rev. Ken Hutcherson has selected a non-traditional theme. From his church’s website:

Friday, 09 May 2008

Please keep praying for a great turnout for this Sunday’s services for two reasons:

1.) It’s Mother’s Day! We want to honor all of our mothers.
2.) This Sunday will be the first of a two part series on why homosexuality is still a sin.

Pray that many lives will be changed.

Pastor Hutch

What mother is going to want to bring her kids to church on her special day to hear a sermon about gay sex? I can’t imagine who - other than Pastor Hutch - would think this topic is appropriate for Mother’s Day.

Which makes me wonder: is Hutcherson completely obsessed with homosexuality, or is it the only subject that makes him a topic of discussion on blog sites and feeds his ego?

(hat tip GoodAsYou)

Hutcherson Brags About Disrupting School

Timothy Kincaid

April 29th, 2008

On his church’s website today Rev. Ken Hutcherson posted the following:

Tuesday, 29 April 2008

Praise for the Day of Silence outcome! Whether they blame me or credit me, the fact of the matter is over 600 students, almost half the student body at Mt. Si were kept home by their parents on the Day of Silence. The school officials must realize they have some very unhappy parents.

Last night I met with the NAACP. Please pray for wisdom for them as they discuss what their move will be in response to the Mt. Si MLK Day debacle.

Please pray for me as I travel to Southern California today and as I return home on Saturday.

Pastor Hutch

Like most braggarts, Hutch assumes that his actions are larger than they are.

Though he says students were “kept home by their parents”, even the most casual observer knows that many of these students just stayed away because it was a spring Friday and they could get away with treating it like a holiday.

And assuming that those who stayed away from Rev. Hutcherson’s bullhorned abuse are actually supporters of his message is downright delusional. Only 100 people turned up for his protest and there’s no indication that any of them were students.

But I do agree that there are undoubtedly unhappy parents of Mount Si students. I’m sure quite a few wish that Rev. Ken Hutcherson had decided to take his ministry to some other part of the country and left their school alone.

Hutcherson’s Bullhorn

Timothy Kincaid

April 26th, 2008

Rev. Ken Hutcherson’s responds to the disruption caused by students sitting silently.

Picture from the Seattle Times.

Hutch’s Disrupting Protest

Timothy Kincaid

April 25th, 2008

One of the consistent (and consistently stupid) claims of the anti-gay wacktivists is that the Day of Silence is “disrupting” of schools. Sitting there silent (unless called on in class) disrupts the education process by (silently) shoving your views down the throats of other students (the other frequent but oddly chosen catch phrase), ya see.

So Rev. Ken Hutcherson decided to protest, along with 1,000 of his prayer buddies.

Well, the Day of Silence has come and gone at the Mount Si High School. And how did Hutch do in quelling the disturbance?

Well, let’s see…

Around 7 am about 80 parents and supporters of the Gay-Straight Alliance came and silently stood to welcome those students observing the DOS.

“We want to let students in the GSA know they have support in the community,” said Lucinda Hauser, a parent of a Mount Si student.

Then at 9:30 am, Hutcherson’s bus showed up with him, his bodyguards, and about 100 supporters. Although he had placed an add in the local newspaper and was hoping for 1,000 angry anti-gays, he didn’t come close to meeting his goal. Hutcherson’s group began to pray and sing and wave signs with messages such as “Silence for Unnatural Behavior? Not ME”.

The parents and supporters had left around 8, not wanting to deal with Hutch and crew. But another group of about 150 counter-protestors were there to challenge the anti-gays. Some, it seems, were from Tolt UCC Congregational Church who ran an ad of support for the students in the same newspaper.

Ken Lauren, a Redmond parent whose son-in-law teaches at Mt. Si, shouted, “Are these the values you want your kids to grow up with — bigotry, intolerance, hatred.” He carried a sign that said, “I believe in separation of church and hate.”

The chaos outside was in contrast to the silence inside. About 200 of the 1,400 students took part in the effort to honor Lawrence King and to draw attention to discrimination and violence against gay kids.

But theirs was not the only message. The Mt. Si Conservative Club passed out red, white and blue ribbons to display their opposition to the silent students.

Inside the school, students and administrators said there were many T-shirts expressing opposing views and some intense discussions.

And to avoid all the conflict (or, more likely, because they could get away with it), about 500 students stayed away from school.

So how well did Rev. Hutcherson do in his quest to stop the disturbing effect of the Day of Silence at his daughter’s high school? Perhaps it would do to compare Mt. Si to other schools in the area.

Seventeen of 19 high schools in King County participated in the National Day of Silence, but none of the other schools had any of the tense moments seen in Snoqualmie.

So I guess we can say that Hutch didn’t succeed in his goal of bringing order from chaos. But some have doubts that this was his goal anyway.

Reverend Hutcherson and his supporters said they were there because they didn’t think school is the place for a demonstration about sexuality.

However, school officials think Hutcherson’s stand may be pay-back after teachers, since disciplined, heckled him at a civil rights assembly. And the school says Friday’s tolerance should be a lesson to both students and parents alike.

“The reverend is going to do what he’s going to do,” said Mt. Si High School principal Randy Taylor. “We certainly are disappointed that he’s taken this form of protest on a student-initiated, student-organized activity.”

I’ll bet Taylor is praying that Hutch decides on private schooling soon.

Hutcherson Supporters Speak Out

Timothy Kincaid

April 25th, 2008

Ken Schram at KOMO TV in Seattle has been critical of Ken Hutcherson’s campaign against Mt. Si High School. He’s provided a sample of some of the responses to him.

They are all worth a chuckle or a cringe, but my favorite is

Elaine Biggerstaff writes: “You are the perpetrator of hate when you refuse to tolerate the obligation Christians have to believe what God has revealed.”

I’m not sure exactly what Ms. Biggerstaff thinks that God has revealed about the murder of Lawrence King.

Hutcherson and Barber Talk About the Day of Silence and Reveal Hutch’s Paranoia

Timothy Kincaid

April 24th, 2008

Rev. Ken Hutcherson spoke with Matt Barber on a Concerned Women for America podcast about Hutcherson’s protest of the Day of Silence. Barber and Hutcherson both make some claims that do not seem to be fact based and, in Hutcherson’s case, appear to demonstrate paranoia:

Barber claims

• GLSEN is an “adult homosexual activist group” that uses children as “pawns to futher their very deceptive agenda”.
• some Christians are taking a “very soft approach” to the Day of Silence rather than “challenge it head on” because they want “the path of least resistance”. [I assume this refers to the Golden Rule pledge]

Hutcherson claims

• kids who are kept out of school on the DOS may make up an excuse rather than “stand up”.
• he was invited to speak at Mt. Si because it was “a great time to ambush the Christian”.
• he’s been labeled the “number one homophobe in the United States”. He told “them” that as long as Dr. James Dobson is alive then Dobson’s number one and he’s is number two. [I can’t find any reference anywhere to Hutcherson being labeled as the number one homophobe, much less that he responded in any way to “them”]
• there is a million dollar award out for infomation that would destroy his ministry.
• the minute his daughter introduced him on MLK day, white teachers booed [although news reports indicate that one teacher booed, Hutcherson repeated refered to “white teachers”, plural]
• the school promised him that there would be nothing controversially done about his appearance
• four or five teachers run the whole school, along with the principal and assistant principal and they are all afraid of the homosexual agenda
• if you look through the Bible you cannot find one word in the Bible that relates to tolerance
• the reason Jesus didn’t condemn the woman at the well was because was “set up to sin” and the man she committed adultery with wasn’t also brought. He implied that otherwise Jesus would have condemned both of them.

Barber also seems to imply that Hutcherson should engage in violence against the school authorities. Hutcherson said, “now you’ve got an angry dad”, to which Barber replies, “I don’t blame you and I seem to recall that you played a little football”. [Hutcherson played in the NFL in the 70’s].

All in all, I have to conclude that Hutcherson is either paranoid or not particularly concerned about the accuracy of his statements.

(hat tip to Good-As-You)

Hutcherson to Annoy Mt. Si High School Again

Timothy Kincaid

April 23rd, 2008

Rev. Ken Hutcherson is determined to be a general nuicence and all around pain in the ass.

He has opposed Washington’s non-discrimination laws. He’s threatened Microsoft with a hostile take-over because they support their gay employees. But now he’s set his sights a bit lower - Mt. Si High School where his daughter attends.

He has tried to get two teachers fired. He’s tried to get the Gay-Straight Alliance banned. He harassed and threatened the librarian. And now he’s going to be protesting the schoolkids who observe the Day of Silence.

Oh yeah, while kids on the inside are silently bringing attention to bullying, Hutcherson will be outside presenting himself as a screaming ranting example of the type of threat that gay kids face.

On his church’s website he says

Wednesday, 23 April 2008

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.

Pastor Hutch!

Please, no one tell Pastor Hutch that by next wednesday the event will be over.

The Stranger reports that Hutch also took to the airwaves to spread his own special brand of hate-the-gay.

The Monday radio program that featured Hutcherson claimed that several high schools in and around Seattle are trying to stop the event from happening. All of the schools contacted by The Stranger, however, including some of those mentioned on the program, said the activity is going forward—sponsored by students and without interference from school administrators. “Of course we would hope that there’s tolerance of other people and other lifestyles, on any day of the year and not just one day,” said David Tucker, a Seattle Public Schools spokesperson.

Fortunately, the Reverend Ken Hutcherson will not be the sole voice of Christianity or community to be heard by gay kids at Mt. Si

A group at Tolt Congregational Church in Carnation plans to run an ad beside Hutcherson’s in Wednesday’s edition of the Snoqualmie Valley Record reading, “We are One in The Spirit,” and pledging to support the GSA. Another group, called “Friends of GSA,” is encouraging Snoqualmie residents to confront Hutcherson’s group outside of Mount Si on Friday morning, although McCormick isn’t thrilled about that. “A school is not the right place for this,” she said.

Poor Hutch. His efforts to stop the Day of Silence are not going to be any more effective than his bid to remove domestic partners insurance from Microsoft. But at this point I doubt that he has any illusions about his effectivity; he just likes to see his name in print.

Watchman On the Walls’ Domain Name Expired

Jim Burroway

March 22nd, 2008

It looks like hating gays can be a full-time job. Someone forgot to renew the Watchmen On the Walls’ web site.

Hutcherson Threatens and Intimidates High School Librarian

Timothy Kincaid

March 12th, 2008

Ken Hutcherson, known for his anti-gay activism, is continuing his harassment of teachers at Mt. Si High School where his daugter is a student.

The Snoqualmie Valley Record reports:

Mount Si librarian Elaine Harger said she had received an e-mail from Rev. Ken Hutcherson that referred to Mount Si’s Gay-Straight Alliance as a “sex club” and asked if Harger wanted to be added to the list of Mount Si teachers he was pushing to have fired.

“What had I done to justify that he would try to get me fired from my job? This is intimidation, pure and simple,” said Harger.

Hutcherson may call himself a Reverend and a Christian. He may even pastor a church. But I find his behavior to be indicative of a heart full of arrogance, anger, and self-righteousness and I want nothing to do with his form of religion.

UPDATE: (hat tip to reader a. mcewen)

The text of the letter was:

Dear Elaine Harger,

I see that my name was used many times in your letter to Mrs. Garding,(names removed). These are concerned parents, in which I am one, and not Hutcherson supporters as you have said. I could disappear at this very moment but the parents are not going away.

I want the teachers Kit McCormick and George Potratz fired and I will not stop until they are gone. Do you wish to be added to that list? I want the day of silence silenced and it will not happen during school time anymore. I have never said that the GSA should not be a club but have asked why a sex club is pushed on campus.

You have the right to invoke my name for being an invited guest, and as an invited guest that was treated very poorly, I demand that all students have a safe environment and not just the students of the GSA.

Do you think my daughter feels Mount Si is a safe environment for her? Do you think that conservative, ultra-patriotic, pro-war, Bible-stumpers as one administrator has said feels safe at Mount Si? Do you think Christian, Mormon, and any other religious groups of kid think Mount Si is a safe environment for them?

You and others may have wished I was never invited but I was so now you have to deal with me and how I was treated. I am here for the long run and I am not going away, even if letters like yours are continued to be written. Please do continue to write because I am collecting them for my case of a hostile environment for me as a parent, for me as an invited guest, for me as a Christian, and for me as a resident of the Snoqualmie School District.

Dr. Ken Hutcherson
Senior Pastor Antioch Bible Church

Hutcherson’s Hate Sermon

Jim Burroway

February 24th, 2008

Watchman On the Walls cofounder Ken Hutcherson is at it again. This came from a recent Sunday sermon by the good reverend:

On a Sunday when Tarico was present, Hutcherson was preaching on gender roles. During his sermon, Hutcherson stated, “God hates soft men” and “God hates effeminate men.” Hutcherson went on to say, “If I was in a drugstore and some guy opened the door for me, I’d rip his arm off and beat him with the wet end.”

“That was a joke,” Hutcherson said Friday, when I asked him about the comment. But it’s not really funny, is it?

No it isn’t at all. Especially in light of Lawrence King’s recent murder. Remember, he was described as effeminate by his classmates. It’s appalling to see a Christian preacher make light of violence like this. This man man has no sense of shame or decency.

With a constant torrent of statements like these coming from pastors, it’s no wonder that nearly eight out of ten evangelical youth consider their own church to be “too anti-homosexual.” Exodus International claims that they want to change that by “demonstrat[ing] love and compassion to homosexual individuals.” And yet, Hutcherson has been a regular speaker at Exodus International’s annual conference for some time now. If Exodus leaders proudly stand on the stand on the same stage as their “good friend” again this year, their sham will be vividly apparent to everyone.

Gosh, Why Would Hutcherson’s Daughter Make the GSA Kids Uncomfortable?

Timothy Kincaid

February 19th, 2008

As we previously reported, Rev. Ken Hutcherson has expanded his war on the lives of gay people from Microsoft to Mt. Si High School.

Convinced of his moral superiority, Hutcherson has no hesitation in making outlandish demands and accusations. The new targets in his sights are the teachers who he feels disrespected him and the school’s Gay-Straight Alliance.

Hutcherson told OneNewsNow

In addition, says the pastor and father, teachers at the school have approached his daughter — and on at least one occasion, one of his daughter’s friends — in hopes of discouraging her from attending Gay Straight Alliance meetings in the aftermath of the assembly. They have reportedly advised that her presence causes members of the club to be “uncomfortable.”

On his church website, Hutch has the following message:

The text reads:

This poster is hanging in the window of a classrom [sic] at Mt. Si High School!

It’s time we wake up and realize we are in a culture WAR!

When teachers are allowed to hang posters like this in our local school, we’ve got a big problem. It’s time to take back our schools.

Pastor Hutch

Hutcherson knows that the poster is a product of the students - or he should. So why is he complaining that a teacher was allowed to hang the poster? Because he knows that he won’t be able to stir up anger against children and honesty always takes a back seat to effectiveness in war.

I don’t know Hutcherson’s daughter. She may be delightful. But if I were a student who was part of Mt. Si’s GSA, I too would be uncomfortable to see her - or her camera - in the room. Her father has declared WAR on their lives, and it certainly appears that she is a soldier.

Hat tip: Good-As-You

Hutcherson Attracts Conflict Again

Timothy Kincaid

February 9th, 2008

UPDATED: See Below

Rev. Ken Hutcherson is the senior pastor of a 3,500 member church in Redmond, WA. Hutch, as he’s called, was also a linebacker for the Cowboys, Chargers, and Seahawks in the mid 70’s. But what he’s best known for is as a vocal opponent of civil rights and equality for gay people.

Hutcherson is a founder of the anti-gay group Watchmen on the Walls, which has been known to justify violence and murder, he’s lobbied to overturn Microsoft’s anti-discrimination policies (including a bizzare scheme in which he encourages Christians to buy shares of Microsoft and give them to him), and most recently seemed to reject the Christian notion of loving gay people (”The Bible says when a sinner will not separate himself from a sin then he is condemned with it.”)

Hutcherson’s beliefs are not a secret. But somehow the principle of Mt. Si High School in the Snoqualmie Valley either did not know or did not care about Hutch’s very vocal and visible campaign to reinstate legal discrimination against gay folks in Washington State. So he invited Rev. Hutcherson to come speak at the school’s Martin Luther King, Jr. Day assembly.

Hutcherson, whose daughter attends the school, did not speak about his homophobic social activism but instead discussed growing up black in Alabama.

But some students and teachers were shocked that such a vocal opponent of gay civil quality would be brought in to talk about civil rights on a day recognizing King’s contributions. One teacher booed when Hutcherson was announced and another teacher asked Hutcherson at the end of his presentation how he could claim to speak about civil rights when he so actively opposed them for gay people. Hutch got offended.

The principle sent out a public apology to Hutcherson and gave each of the two teachers a “letter of discipline” in their permanant files.

Well this event has stirred up a firestorm in the community. The assembly has now been the subject of two contentious School Board meetings. Some parents are furious that any teacher should voice their “personal and political views” while others are angry that the administration would not support the teachers who stood up to bigotry. Hutcherson’s wife, Jan, claimed at the meeting that the beliefs of Hutcherson have resulted in the family being “boldly called names like ‘bigot’, ‘homophobe’”.

But as the event was scheduled on his birthday, I can’t help but wonder why no one is asking what Dr. King would have done had he been in attendance.

UPDATE:

Good-As-You brought to our attention a letter that Hutcherson wrote to his church:

Saturday, 09 February 2008

Dear Church,

Last night at the Snoqualmie Valley School Board Meeting, the teachers supportive of the Gay Straight Alliance drew a line in the sand, and I am stepping over it. I spoke to the Superintendent this morning and he promised, “…it’s for the children.”

I said I want him to protect my daughter and I want Kit McCormick removed from the classroom.

Another teacher at the meeting last night, George Potratz, said that if I am trying to repeal rights for gays, he thinks we should start a movement to bring back slavery.

Mr. Potratz does not deserve to be on the faculty of the school and should be fired immediately. Over the next few days, I will be talking with the School Board and the school officials.

My theme will be a line from a Pink Floyd song, “Hey! Teachers! Leave them kids alone!”

In response to what happened, one of our members, Steve Dudgeon, wrote the following letter: Click here to read!

Pastor Hutch

I find it very disturbing that this man is trying to bully the school into firing a teacher for simply asking him a question at a school assembly. Does he really think that getting someone fired for disagreeing with you is remotely “Christian”?

The letter is even more laden with martyrdom language. Hutch and his congregation believe that they are the victims whenever those whom they are attacking stand up to them.

I was amazed at the vitriol and hatred shown by several pro-gay rights teachers toward us as Christians. They hate our guts.

In some rather strange parable about bull fighting, Dudgeon argues that a Christian is to go into a bull ring and wave a red flag. If the bull charges, the Christian demands that the owner of the bull build a smaller ring.

Oddly enough, I think that pretty well describes Hutcherson’s attitude and approach.

Guilty Verdict in Riga Feces-Throwing Incident

Jim Burroway

January 16th, 2008

An assistant to a Latvian Parliament member was found guilty by a Riga court Tuesday of “gross public disorderliness” in connection with the feces-throwing incident at Riga Pride in July, 2006. Janis Dzelme, 32, was sentenced to 100 hours of “compulsory labor,” which is considered a harsher sentence than the fine recommended by the prosecutor.

Dzelme works in the Saeima (Parliament) for Dainis Turlais of the Latvia First Party, and is a member of Alexai Ledyaev’s New Generation Church. The Latvia First Party is closely connected with New Generation and Watchmen On the Walls, a millitant anti-gay organization. Dainis Turlais has a reputation for being among the most homophobic lawmakers in Parliament, calling gays “pigs” and “bacteria.” Ledyaev was in the court room to hear the verdict and sentence along with 20 members of New Generation.

Ledyaev is a co-founder of Watchmen On the Walls. Other prominent leaders include Americans Scott Lively, co-author of The Pink Swastika: Homosexuals and the Nazi Party, which claims that gays were fully responsible for the rise of the Nazi party and the resulting holocaust. Another co-founder is Ken Hutcherson, pastor of Antioch Bible Church in Kirkland, Washington. Last March, Hutcherson traveled to Riga, claiming that he was a special envoy of President Bush and was authorized to speak on behalf of the administration. When the White House strongly denied this, Hutcherson responed by saying he had video evidence. So far, that evidence hasn’t materialized.

Ledyayev will travel to the United States to speak at the Synergy Pastors Conference in Atlanta from January 29 and 31. Also appearing at that conference is David Sobrepeña of the Word of Hope Ministries in Manila, the Phillipines. Sobrepeña also spoke at the Watchmen’s conference in Riga.

Hutcherson Reboots His Microsoft Project

Jim Burroway

January 7th, 2008

When last we checked in on this strange saga, Watchmen On the Walls co-founder Ken Hutcherson appeared before a Microsoft shareholders meeting threatening that if they didn’t drop their support for equal treatment of LGBT employees, he’d become their “worst nightmare.” Soon after, we learned that Hutcherson plans to pack Microsoft shareholders with like-minded investors. Today, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer reports that Hutcherson has a new financial venture to support this effort:

Hutcherson, joined by some of the country’s most influential Christian leaders, has created a new organization, AGN Financial Network, to finance the effort. The worldwide venture asks people to buy three shares of company stock, and donate one to AGN. Its Web site tells visitors, “You have the power to change the world,” and contains tips on how to open a brokerage account. Among the listed supporters are Richard Land of the Southern Baptist Convention and religious pundit Gary Bauer.

“We’re not trying to hurt Microsoft or their shareholders, nor are we calling for a boycott of their products,” volunteer spokesman Dennis Sullivan said. “We are trying to get Christians to buy their shares.”

When we first reported on this plan, we did the math on what it would require to take over a $318 billion company. Not an easy did thing to do. The Post-Intelligencer also ran the numbers:

It would be difficult to influence company direction — just to gain a 1 percent stake in Microsoft, about 31 million people would each have to spend $104 to buy three shares. Microsoft has about 9.36 billion outstanding shares, and its largest holder is Chairman Bill Gates, with 858 million shares, or 9 percent of the total. Capital Research and Management Co. follows with nearly 557 million shares, or 6 percent.

Interestingly, Hutcherson thinks that Microsoft should confine its policies to “within its four walls,” and that they should have no voice in public policy whatsoever. Hutcherson also thinks he is exempt from that same principle:

Hutcherson said it’s not Microsoft’s job to influence the public agenda, and that it should be left to others, like him.

“That’s what my job is,” he said. “I’m a pastor.”

Some people seem to think the First Amendment doesn’t apply to everyone.

Ken Hutcherson: Rejecting “Loving the Sinner?”

Jim Burroway

January 5th, 2008

There was a very quick article in Thursday’s Christian Science Monitor about the Watchmen On the Walls. Yours very truly was interviewed for the story. The quote they used was a very quick one, about the Watchmen’s militancy and explicitly theocratic leanings. I wish reporter Ben Arnoldy had included my explanation that I am very careful about who I label theocratic. It’s a label that I very rarely use because very few fit it. But many of the Watchmen do. Nevertheless I think Arnoldy captured the gist of it.

Of course, I wasn’t the only one contacted for the article. Among others, so was Watchman co-founder Kenneth Hutcherson:

The Watchmen is a Christian movement that doesn’t teach hate or seek out violent followers, says Mr. Hutcherson, who is a pastor in Washington State. “God’s word does not allow us to hate. It tells us to stand up for righteousness and call a sin a sin,” he says. He rejects, however, the idea of loving the sinner while hating the sin. “The Bible says when a sinner will not separate himself from a sin then he is condemned with it. The one thing I’m trying to do is get heterosexuals out of the closet. We are the majority,” he says.

If Hutcherson really rejected the idea of loving the sinner while hating the sin, that represents an about-face from fellow co-founder and holocaust revisionist Scott Lively’s band-aide attempt in Riga, Latvia last November:

Say that with me. “We love the sinner, but hate the sin.” That must be your phrase because that will protect you from being misrepresented.

Presented that way, it sounds more like a magical incantation instead of theology. Understandably, Hutcherson doesn’t believe in magic. I get that. And since he’s won’t even avail himself of that simple fig leaf of a phrase, I guess the rest of the nakedness metaphor becomes appropriate as well.

The Watchmen In Riga, Part 4: “A Militant Army Marching Against Evil”

Jim Burroway

December 10th, 2007

(This series on the Watchmen On the Walls conference in Riga, Latvia held Nov. 14-18 is based on the videos posted on the New Generation web site. Translations from Russian were generously provided by Ruslan Porshnev of the Russian LGBT web site Anti-Dogma.)

So far, our coverage of the Watchmen On the Walls’ conference in Riga, Latvia has focus on their depictions of the so-called dangers that homosexuality poses to civilization. They claimed that Christian society is besieged by the “homosexual movement,” by those who follow “the father of lies” who hold closely guarded secrets that they keep from the rest of the world, and whose actions have the moral equivalence of throwing innocent children into the furnaces of Nazi Germany.

But the Watchmen didn’t gather in Riga to just moan and groan about a world overrun with evil. They also wanted to impart a plan for combating this supposed scourge. We touched on one part of that plan — American holocaust revisionist Scott Lively’s call to his Russian-Latvian audience to come to Springfield, Massachusetts as missionaries.

But their greater plan was to prepare the way for the New Generation church movement to become more directly involved in political activism from the very top. I believe that the statements at the conference, combined with statements made by Watchmen leaders, illustrate a desire to create, at the very least, a theonomic-based system of governance not only in Eastern Europe, Asia and Africa, but in the West as well — including right here in America. And as always, I don’t ask that anyone take my word for it. Instead, I’ll simply offer you a generous sampling of their own words so you can judge your yourself.

Some of the positions advocated by Watchmen founders and spokespersons — including those of American Watchmen — run distinctly counter to the values of America’s founders. For example, American holocaust revisionist and Watchman founder Scott Lively wrote an open letter “to the Russian people” a month before the Riga conference, in which he offered this recommendation:

…[C]riminalize the public advocacy of homosexuality. My philosophy is to leave homosexuals alone if they keep their lifestyle private, and not to force them into therapy if they don’t want it. However, homosexuality is destructive to individuals and to society and it should never publicly promoted. The easiest way to discourage “gay pride” parades and other homosexual advocacy is to make such activity illegal in the interest of public health and morality.

Of course, Russia does not have the First Amendment freedoms of speech, assembly, and redress of grievances that we enjoy in the U.S., and recent events show that Russia doesn’t really need much encouragement along these lines. And so it’s very disturbing to see an America lawyer advocating totalitarian solutions for other countries, and one wonders what sort of country his movement would like to see here in the U.S. if they were to have their way here.

So how do the Watchmen see the role of church and state — or more specifically, their church and state?

On Thursday evening (November 15), evangelist David Sobrepeña, Senior Pastor of the Word of Hope Church in Manila, Philippines, gave a talk on “the promises of God.” This talk was in many respects a continuation of the theme of “spiritual weapons” that Ledyaev opened the conference with the night before. As Sobrepeña spoke on Matthew 16:18 (”On this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”), he described a militaristic vision of God’s promise that he said that passage represents:

I began to picture a militant army marching against the forces of evil. A great and vast army, very powerful, marching against the forces of hell. Do you know that the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ is greater in number and more powerful than the combined air force and military force of the United States, of Russia, of China, and all the other countries in the world?

The armies of the world are no match for the powers of Satan. But tonight, let me tell you brothers and sisters, that Satan trembles at the sight of God’s army we call the church. Over one billion committed Christians in the world today. God promised power to the church.

He then spoke about the need for Christians to become active in government because that is where the real exercise of power takes place. As an example, he described his efforts to get a born again Christian appointed to the Philippines Supreme Court. This, he believed, was evidence that God ordained the church to wield political power:

The homosexual agenda, all the other agendas of this world by liberal politicians, don’t be afraid of them because the church will emerge victorious. The church will emerge victorious. Even though many times it seems like the power of darkness is covering our society and many people are backsliding. In the end, the church will emerge as victorious because Jesus promised a victorious church, a church without spot or wrinkle.

As the conference continued, a picture emerged which shows that their message is often an uncomfortably close fit to the Dominionist or Christian Reconstructionist movements in the U.S., and it directly follows the political stance of Alexey Ledyaev’s New Generation church movement. And while the Watchmen do not have an official statement on the role the church should play in a democratic society, it appears that many speakers at the Watchmen conference shared Ledyaev’s political views.

In 2002, Ledyaev wrote a political manifesto he called The New World Order. (A rough English translation was posted online by the New Generation church in Springfield, Massachusetts, Scott Lively’s new home.) In The New World Order Ledyaev says that the church needs to be the spark for a great revival.

But unlike most Christian denominations, he doesn’t place much value in promoting an evangelical revival among ordinary people — those “from the bottom,” as he puts it. Instead, Ledyaev, says that it’s far more important for this revival to take place among political and social leaders, “from the top.” He believes that if political leaders undergo a revival, then all of society will begin to change from the top down. The advantage of focusing on revival at the top, says Ledyaev, is that the kind of reform he seeks is not as likely “to be bogged down in a couple of years.” He writes:

When the government bows its knees before the name of Jesus Christ then the country will be Christian. It cannot be otherwise, because the God of the kings will sooner or later become the God of their nations. This is how life is.

And Ledyaev cites the United States as an example:

After a short break and a fierce election struggle God has once again restored Christian Government in USA. The born again president of the country, his administration that mostly consists of Christians on the key positions of authority – it is a great victory.

Advent to power of the Christian government does not mean that the whole country will at once automatically become puritan. It means that the country will have all preconditions for it, because in such circumstances church receives an unprecedented freedom to influence and to act.

George Bush Jr. is more of a preacher, than a politician. However, it is exactly this quality that determines his political insight, pragmatism and invulnerability.

The Watchmen’s hopes for creating a “Christian government” for Latvia was on full display at the Watchmen conference. Just before David Sobrepeña took the stage, Ledyaev introduced three members of the Latvian government, all of whom are members of the Latvia First Party which is closely associated with New Generation. The first, Ainars Šlesers is one of the Latvia First Party’s founders and currently serves as Minister of Transport. He is also a member of New Generation and reportedly one of the wealthiest people in Latvia. He talked about the success he had in having Christianity taught in the public schools, and the importance of political engagement in the state.

Šlesers was then followed by Janis Smits, who is a Latvia First member of parliament and, paradoxically, the chairman of that country’s Human Rights Committee. He also spoke out for the need for direct engagement against the gay rights movement in Latvia:

We’re living in a real world with real spiritual enemy. There is a spiritual war going on. Not only those people who gathered on the Square have their rights. We also have our rights: to raise our voice, to protect our government elected by us, our parliament, our deputies and our faith. Let’s not stand aside of this. Let’s actively participate in it.

…We can do it because we are the majority, we are united in our faith and our beliefs.

Another Latvia First member of parliament, Inta Feldmane, addressed the crowd that night:

We’re living in a global world where borders are vanishing. Through these borders not only people are moving, not only finances, services, but also philosophies, religions, false teachings and there’s a new enemy now: secularism and humanism, which places into its center not God and the Ten Commandments, but a human being, his wishes and will. I’d also like to say - sinful lusts.

Now it’s a struggle for that will and these wishes should become laws by which all people must live, including religious people. I thank God for Latvia being a chosen land, for these churches existing.

And she spoke about the constitutional separation of church and state:

They say that the Constitution separates Church and State and that’s why the Church is unable to speak and publicly protect its interests. It’s all a lie. The constitution only says that there should be no state church and that government can not interfere with church business and church can not interfere with governmental business.

But we do have a right for dialog. We have a right to express our opinion - publicly, in media and on such conferences. And we should know this. We will not allow our mouths to be silenced. We will not allow ourselves to be placed in a certain framework, stuck inside the walls of the church.

The theological underpinnings for all of this were cemented on Friday afternoon when Joseph Mattera, senior pastor of Resurrection Church in New York City, spoke to the conference. Basing his talk on John 1:1 (”In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God”), he said:

That means the Word of God is the starting point for all living and nonliving things. The Word of God is the starting point for mathematics, the starting point for biology, the starting point for grammar, for language, for science, for education and philosophy, for social structures.

The reason why the church is fighting the battle it is today is because a few hundred years ago, we forgot what I just said. We have given up the arts and the sciences. We’ve given up education and we’ve given up the study of nature to those who are secular humanists.
…

And so the church needs to be on the leading edge of all of these disciplines of life, because if all we’re doing is morality, then we will be trying to catch up for the next hundred years.

But the talks weren’t all political theory or theology. Larry Jacobs, of the World Congress of Families, was on hand on Thursday afternoon (Nov 15) to lay out a concrete strategy for confronting gay activists. It was a rather sketchy strategy, but it illustrates what the World Congress of Families sought to do in Warsaw last May. That strategy includes:

• Shifting the anti-gay movement “from defensive to offensive.”
• Changing the language, questions and parameters of debate (for example, say “natural families” a term which he says “drive(s) homosexuals crazy because if you’re not part of the natural family then you’re unnatural.”)
• Finding ways to be seen as progressives, touting a better way of life for the economy and society.
• Building new alliances among different Christian groups, whether they are Orthodox, Catholic or Pentecostal.
• Using scientific data which “supports Biblical Truth” (Jacobs exclaimed, “The exciting thing about this is if we use this data it sounds like Scripture but the world listens to the scientists.”)
• Reaching the next generation (For example, through children’s books and cartoons like The Veggie Tales).
• Using the World Congress of Families, Watchmen On the Walls and others for networking, direction, encouragement and to celebrate the family.

To illustrate some of these efforts, Jacobs announced that they received a proposal from the Russian government to bring the World Congress of Families to Moscow in 2009. Several others mentioned planning for various conferences in various countries of the former Soviet Union as well as a Watchmen conference in Africa for 2008. While details of this African conference weren’t disclosed, there is a strong likelihood that it might be planned for Lagos, Nigeria, home of the Revival Assembly whose pastor, Anselm Madubuko, spoke at the Watchmen’s conference in Novosibirsk and who closed the conference in Riga.

And Scott Lively announced that his holocaust revisionist book, The Pink Swastika, will be released in a Russian translation in 2008, which will only serve to fuel the flames of hatred of gays and lesbians further in Russia and among Russian-speaking communities in Eastern Europe and the U.S.

Until the past few months, the Watchmen have largely flown under the radar. A quick round of private message to national gay-rights groups here in America has found that few people here know anything about them. The language barrier seems to have something to do with it, along with the fact that the Watchmen movement is a relatively recent phenomenon. But it appears to be an aggressive and growing movement, with the potential for serious repercussions internationally as well as here at home.

When Scott Lively spoke Thursday morning, he warned his audience that “We have to understand that we are being watched by people all over the world. There are probably even homosexual spies in this room.” And he said that those “spies” would like nothing better than to catch them saying something ugly or hateful. And then, of course, the Watchmen put videos of their conference on the internet for all the world to see. No “spying” is needed to see what this organization is all about. Their own images and words can now speak for themselves. All we have to do is watch them. And we will.

(Thanks to Ruslan Porshnev of the Russian LGBT web site Anti-Dogma, for generously providing the English translations of the Russian speakers at the conference. You can read more about his work here.)

See all the posts in this series:

The Watchmen In Riga, Part 1: “Become A Missionary To America”
The Watchmen In Riga, Part 2: From Babylon To Jerusalem
The Watchmen In Riga, Interlude: A Pastor’s Prayer
The Watchmen In Riga, Part 3: The “Secrets” Of Homosexuality
The Watchmen In Riga, Part 4: “A Militant Army Marching Against Evil”

The Watchmen In Riga, Part 3: The “Secrets” Of Homosexuality

Jim Burroway

December 3rd, 2007

(This series on the Watchmen On the Walls conference in Riga, Latvia held Nov. 14-18 is based on the videos posted on the New Generation web site. Translations from Russian were generously provided by Ruslan Porshnev of the Russian LGBT web site Anti-Dogma.)

Last week, we devoted extensive coverage of the Watchmen On the Wall’s five-day conference in Riga in Part 1 and Part 2 of this series, and yet with all that we’ve barely covered the first day and a half of the conference. Much of those first sessions were devoted to promoting a doom-and-gloom scenario of a world besieged by “the homosexual movement.” While I intend to pick up the pace and wrap things up more quickly than I started, I want to be sure that you are able to thoroughly understand what these mostly American anti-gay extremists are telling the rest of the world.

And if you think that what I presented so far covers just about every ugly word that can be said about homosexuality, you’re tragically mistaken because there was another set of themes that were explored on Friday morning that I found to be shocking. I left you last week with Alexey Ledyeav’s prayer which went, “In the name of Jesus I curse this phenomenon! I curse the root of this movement! In the name of Jesus I curse the culture of death and say to it: DRY OUT!… ” Now I want to share with you two talks which immediately preceded that prayer.

It all began when Scott Lively returned to the stage on Friday morning (November 16), this time promising a “university course on the things the homosexual movement does not want you to know.” And I have to say that this has to be the most amazing anti-gay talk I have ever heard — and remember, I sat through the Family Impact Summit in Florida last September. But nothing I heard there prepared me for Lively’s talk that morning. I don’t have the powers of written expression to fully convey how strange his talk was. That’s why I strongly encourage you to watch the video yourself. (Unfortunately, Lively doesn’t begin speaking until the 19:30 mark, but you can listen to Russian contemporary Christian music while you’re waiting.)

But I understand that not everyone can sit still for an hour-long anti-gay speech. So I’ll do the best I can with the highlights. Lively began his talk on the “secrets” of the homosexual movement this way:

“The first thing that the homosexuality community doesn’t want you to know, number one, most homosexuals do not want to be homosexual. Homosexuality is a disorder inside of you. It’s when you have an attraction, a sexual attraction, towards someone of the same gender. Every person that begins to feel this attraction towards someone of the same gender knows that it’s wrong, because they live in a world where they see what is normal and they can compare the way they feel with what everyone else does.

Lively explained that lots of teens experience same sex attractions during puberty, but most of them pass through this “phase” and the feelings go away. But for some, it’s becomes more than a phase:

But for some people, for different reasons, they don’t overcome it. But all of them know that it’s wrong, and almost all of them feel ashamed and they don’t want to have this. And so they begin to struggle against it. Inside themselves they struggle against the feelings. … But it’s also very difficult to overcome. And so what happens is they struggle and they struggle and they struggle against the feelings. And they fail and they fail and they fail and they fail. And then after a while, they give up struggling because its too hard to keep struggling against something that they can’t defeat. So they give in to the feelings.

This is the secret to why the homosexual movement is so aggressive about making society accept them. Because they’re living a lie about who they are. Their acceptance of a gay identity is an admission of failure. And so psychologically they turn it around. Because they feel so much shame, they create “gay pride.” And they insist that they’re full of pride about who they are. And it’s just a gigantic self-delusion. It’s a psychological self-defense mechanism. And it makes these people social activists. But that’s the first secret: most homosexuals do no want to be homosexual.

Lively’s explanation of the first “secret” is barely coherent. He doesn’t cite a single study, nor does he provide one scintilla of evidence — not even anecdotal evidence — that gays and lesbians who have come to terms with their sexuality “do not want to be homosexual.” Instead, he simply provides this explanation as though it were established fact. It’s a surprising “secret,” one which, I have to say, I have never heard in my nearly forty-seven years. It must be quite a secret indeed, one that even I am not privy to.

I really have no idea whatsoever where he could have gotten such an idea — unless the only gays and lesbians he’s ever met were members of ex-gay ministries. (He does mention ex-gays towards the end of this talk.) By definition, they don’t want to be gay. Is that where he got such a preposterous idea about gays and lesbians as a whole? If that’s the case, ex-gays would represent a rather unique echo-chamber which no reasonably intelligent person would mistake for being representative of gays and lesbians broadly. I suspect that most ex-gays would agree with me on that point at least. And so we’re left wondering where he could have discovered such a strange secret.

Lively continues:

The second secret of the gay movement has to do with the word “hatred.” Now, anyone who has stood up against homosexuality has been called a homophobe. … [T]here are two reasons for this, and many people know about the first reason. The first reason that they do this is to silence us. And that’s a kind of obvious thing.

But the second and more important thing is a secret. The homosexual leaders, the leaders of the homosexual movement, they are the ones who push this. Not the average homosexual. Of course many of them fall into using it as a tactic. But this aggressive accusation of hatred is coming from the homosexual leaders because they need to keep the other homosexuals inside of the gay community.

Remember, most homosexuals do not want to be homosexual. And if they really believed that there was a way to overcome their homosexuality, many of them would leave the gay community. And the people who have the real hope for change, the ones who have the ability to overcome their sins and their compulsiveness are the Christians. We’re the ones who have the power to help them. But the gay leaders can not let them know that. And so they have to keep calling us hateful bigots and they have to keep all of these gay people inside of their control. And they do this by making them afraid of us.

Here, Lively ascribes a degree of power wielded by “homosexual leaders” that few actual gay rights leaders would ever dream of. Lively says that the only reason most of us remain gay is because it’s the gay rights leaders are able to exercise some sort of mind control to make us afraid of Christians.

Did you get that? It’s the gay rights leaders who make the rest of us fearful. Not pastors who pray for curses. Not people who describe gays and lesbians as followers of the father if lies” or who write revisionist “history” books which claims that gays were responsible for Nazism and the holocaust. Not people who say that gays are subjecting children to “moral rape,” and who equate fair treatment in schools to the Nazi’s throwing children into the holocaust furnaces. And not people who lie about the gay-bashing death of Santender Singh..

No, it’s gay rights leaders who make gays and lesbians afraid of Lively’s brand of Christianity, according to Lively anyway.

Lively continued with secret number three:

The third secret of homosexuality has to do with this idea that homosexuals are born that way. Homosexuals are not born gay. God does not create people to have no choice in a behavior that he condemns. But it’s not the same kind of choice as choosing to become a carpenter or a journalist. Like I said, most homosexuals don’t want to have those feelings. But all sex is voluntary, except for rape. And so if a homosexual is living an active homosexual lifestyle, he is making a choice every single day.

Here, Lively plays a slight of hand, conflating behavior with orientation. It’s true that no behavior is compelled by circumstances of birth. And it is true that all consensual acts, including sex, are voluntary. But by confusing behavior with orientation, he performs a rhetorical trick which dismisses the very essence of what it means to be gay.

But having done that, it’s somewhat surprising that he goes back to cover the ground he skipped when he began revealing his thirds “secret”: Why are gay people gay? And here’s the thing that’s really fascinating.

I’ve been critical of anti-gay activists who claim that homosexuality is strictly the result of childhood experiences. I’ve also been critical of pro-gay activists who claim that science has proved that homosexuality is strictly biological in origin for all gays and lesbians. The fact is, neither extreme position has been proven to be true, and neither extreme position is likely to be true for all gays and lesbians.

But one thing that cannot be denied: Both sides are keenly interested in proving that their understanding of the origins of homosexuality is correct because they believe their framework bolsters their cause. And both sides eagerly tout every scientific finding that supports their beliefs while pretending the other findings don’t exist. Right?

Well, no. Lively has detected a different conspiracy. Hence the secret:

The real secret is that the gay movement does not want to find the cause of homosexuality. You understand what I’m saying? The gay movement does not want to find the cause. Why? Because the day that science finds the cause is the day that begins the race for the cure. Amen?

Think about it. If science were to come forward and say, “it is this gene,” then all of the secular people who don’t have any moral values, they would begin using the science, the gene selecting science that already exists to abort the children who have that gene. And the scientific community would be looking for a way to be able to prevent that gene from influencing the children. So whatever turns out to be the cause provides a place to begin searching for the cure.

And the gay leaders cannot allow this because they’re the ones who are so, … they’re insane, in their minds, because they are so deeply entrenched in this gay identify, they cannot leave it. They’re like the worst of the worst of the heroin addicts.

Here, at the mention of the word “addict,” Lively begins to turn toward the framework often employed by many leaders of the ex-gay movement by characterizing homosexuality as an addiction:

The most powerful addiction of all is sexual because we’re actually created to be sexual. Nobody’s created to be an alcoholic. When you give up alcohol, there’s nothing in your body that requires alcohol. But every body, male and female, is designed for sex. And the most powerful drug in all the universe is a human orgasm. It’s a human orgasm. Because when you have that sexual experience, it floods you brain with the same addictive chemicals that you get when you’re an addict. It’s like the ultimate pleasurable drug.

Now if you’re a young person and you’re experiencing same sex attraction, and someone comes along to you that’s an older homosexual and invites you to participate in a homosexual act, if you enter into that homosexual act and your first orgasm as a human being is the result of homosexual behavior, you can be locked in to an addiction that will last your whole life.

This strange theory is one which some anti-gay activists promote to explain how children and young adults are “recruited” into homosexuality. It’s this idea that some parts of our bodies are designed for sexual pleasure, and if our first experiences of that pleasure is associated with homosexual behavior, then presto! — we become gay due to some kind of Pavlovian conditioning. Some in the ex-gay movement offer similar theories of recruitment based on sexual molestation. I heard Christine Sneeringer of the Ft. Lauderdale ex-gay ministry Worthy Creations offer this explanation at last September’s Family Impact Summit in Tampa.

Lively ended his talk on an “ex-gay” who was dying of AIDS. The Livelys brought “Sonny” into their home and took care of him, and “Sonny” returned the favor by sharing these “secrets” with them before he died — which may partly explain the bizarreness of some of Lively’s “secrets.” Yet Lively used this story to build credibility for his “secrets” — after all, he got them from a pitiful former homosexual himself:

Sonny does not deserve our hate. He deserves our pity. And that’s who most of these people are. These are people who have become enslaved to a satanically inspired addiction. But their lives become so much defined by their perversion that they feel completely cut off form anyone else in the world. For these people the only hope is Jesus Christ and we are the only people that can bring them that message.

But the gay movement tells them that we hate them, we want to kill them and hurt them, and so they are afraid to talk to us. And so that’s another major secret. And you should take these secrets and use them to your advantage.

Lively said that there were more secrets, but he ran out of time and so “they’re going to have to wait for the next lecture.” That next lecture was given by George Neverov, a Sacramento resident who spoke on “Homosexuality Unmasked.” And just when it seemed that nothing could be more outrageous than Lively’s talk, Neverov began his talk this way:

…[The USA] has a terrible secret and this country is afraid to reveal it. It caught a horrible virus on which I’d like to talk with you. This virus has a damaging impact. It aims to destroy the family and it’s name is homosexual culture.

To illustrate what that virus is, Neverov began reading from an essay that was originally titled “Gay Revolutionary” (anti-gay extremists have dubbed it “The Gay Manifesto“), a satire that was written in 1987 by “Michael Swift” and published in the Gay Community News, a radical Boston-based newspaper that went out of business in 1992. The more extreme elements of the anti-gay movement like to quote from this fictional call to arms as though it were a real manifesto. This essay performs a very simi