#788: Ken Hutcherson

Kenneth “Hutch” Hutcherson is a former football player, pastor (Antioch Bible Church in Kirkland, WA), NOM-ally (the local NOM figurehead is one Joseph Backholm) and deranged anti-gay preacher who is working to overturn the state’s marriage equality law and is known for grandiose, incoherent babbling and repeated calls for violence. To take some examples of his antics, there is the particularly idiotic WND screed where he argued that it is time to “take back the rainbow for God” and let “the homosexual community find a different religious symbol to commandeer.” Then, of course, there is his assertion that beating a child will prevent that child from being gay, and that homosexuality is the result of bad parenting (yes, he doesn’t quite manage to see the problem involved in believing those two things simultaneously).

Since some people actually disagree with him, Hutcherson claims that Christians (i.e. True Christians) are persecuted and discriminated against in the US. That Christians are persecuted is, according to Hutcherson, proven beyond doubt by the fact that atheists are allowed to speak. The Day of Silence is apparently another proof (this entry indicts Hutcherson’s follower Melvin Jones as well for his sheer bigotry and lunacy), and there is a report on one of the protests he organized against the Day of Silence here. Hutcherson does claim, however, that he is “free of prejudice”, saying that “God hates soft men”, “God hates effeminate men”, and that “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,” because he is so nice. In fact, his campaigning against homosexuality appears to have had some rather worrisome local results.

Hutcherson is also a creationist, who has tried to have evolution banned from public schools through the remarkably effective weapon of prayer: “Dear Prayer Warrior,” says Hutcherson, “[p]ut your prayer knee pads on. I think God is leading me to raise support to sue the state of Washington Board of Education for teaching a known lie, evolution. Let’s see how we can win this battle and then take it to the federal level.”

Diagnosis: Idiot. Complete. And a real piece of shit. His particular influence is unclear – over and above his obvious, negative local influence – but at least he contributes to the big mass of incoherent bigotry that is the wingnut anti-gay movement.