Wash. Pastor's Opposition to Special Rights Bill Earns Homosexuals' Enmity
by Jim Brown
June 10, 2005
(AgapePress) - A teachers union in Washington State wants a large Christian church banned from using public school facilities in the Lake Washington School District. Officials with the union oppose the church's use of school district property because they allege the evangelical congregation's minister -- a former NFL football star -- promotes intolerance toward homosexuals.
For six years, Antioch Bible Church in Redmond has been renting district facilities for worship services to the tune of more than $140,000 a year. But now, the Lake Washington Education Association wants the church booted off campus, as the group claims the church's pastor is bigoted and intolerant of others.
The pastor of Antioch Bible Church is former NFL linebacker Ken Hutcherson, who recently threatened to launch a nationwide boycott of Microsoft if the company supported a bill in the state legislature that would have established sexual orientation as a civil right in Washington State. He feels that effort to take a public stand for his biblical beliefs on homosexuality may have also earned him some enemies.
"Microsoft backed off and took a neutral position," Hutcherson explains. "The bill failed by one vote, so we won." But now, it seems to the Christian minister that the pro-homosexual president of the Lake Washington Education Association "doesn't like my policies," he says, "so one way to get at me, I guess, is to try to get me out of the school."
Hutcherson believes homosexual activists are upset that he successfully lobbied Microsoft to withdraw support for the homosexual rights legislation. "When they saw a pastor who stood up to one of the largest businesses in the United States -- you know, that 37 billion dollar business -- and [the company] backed off support of that bill," he says, "I think they were desperate."
"When they lost that bill," the athlete turned evangelist contends, homosexual activists in Washington realized that "they have to do something to discredit me or they're going to have problems in future bills and future things they do in this state."
Hutcherson believes that is why Kevin Teeley, the openly homosexual head of the Lake Washington Education Association, has been leveling charges of bigotry and intolerance against him and trying to get Antioch Bible Church barred from renting district facilities. However, the pastor feels it is the teachers union president who is demonstrating intolerance and a lack of love for those who hold views that differ from his own.
Jim Brown, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is a reporter for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.
