Hutch: God Hates Soft Men - let's kick ass

I don't know Valerie Tarico, but if the quotes she relates from attending one of Reverend Ken Hutcherson's services on her blog are accurate, Hutcherson has proved himself a liar yet again:

While I was there, Mr. Hutcherson’s sermon was about gender roles, essentially sanctifying traditional stereotypes.  At various points he acted out a woman cooing over a poopy diaper and a man calling his child to jump off a table, then pulling his arms away and kicking at the child to get up.  The gist was, “What are you gonna do?  God just made us that way.”  He derided a biblical character for raising a weak soft son (who in the story died in her arms).  At one point he said, “God hates soft men.” and at another, “God hates effeminate men.”   But the quote of the day was this one: “If I was in a drug store and some guy opened the door for me, I’d rip his arm off and beat him with the wet end!” 

One might argue that Hutch isn't referring to gay men here, and I certainly know a lot of gay men who are more masculine than many of their straight counterparts, but if he is talking about all men (gay or straight) when he claims to channel God's feelings of hate, then that makes his statements even more reprehensible. 

Either God Hates Gay Men or God Hates Weak or Effeminate Men. Any way you slice it, God Hates someone and Hutch is totally down with that.  Anthony B. Robinson spoke to Hutcherson about his comments in an illuminating opinion piece in the Seattle PI:

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

No, indeed.  Let's review a sampling of Hutch talking about hate in this context and in his own words:

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.

Ah, so God doesn't allow people to hate. Then there is this:

"I believe that God’s word is the final word. I believe that mine is not. And anything that God say is wrong, I say is wrong. And anything that God says is right, I say is right. I do not hate homosexuals. That’s the worst lie that’s ever been told about me. I hate homosexuality because the bible does."

Hutcherson doesn't hate homosexuals, just what he interprets as their sin.  And this:

"If they keep coming back, we're gonna expect them to change," Pastor Hutcherson said in May about gays and lesbians coming to his church. "And if they don't change their lifestyle when they keep coming back to be a part of this church, we're gonna do like we do anyone else that's sinning and won't repent. We're gonna bring them before the church and we're gonna kick 'em out."

"Oh, they call me a bigot, Kathi," he sa(i)d when I sat down with him recently. "That's worse than discrimination. I'm supposed to hate them."

I asked if he is a bigot. He said, "Well, if it means believing in God's outstanding truth, you could probably say yeah. But if you're talking about hatred -- thinking I'm better than someone else -- no not at all"

Confused yet?  Hutcherson certainly seems to be.  And yet his followers don't seem to recognize hate when they hear it pouring into their own ears:

"He's not a pastor of hate," said Dan Kreft, 32, Adair's husband and a software engineer. "He preaches the word of God."

It may be that this is all as simple as telling people what they want to hear.  That is one simple reason for Hutcherson saying one thing to the press and another to his congregation.  That is behavior that must at best be called an evasion and at worst an outright lie.

It is always easier to feel good about behaving unjustly when a pastor tells you God is flying air-cover.

Moral of the story: If you were raised to be polite and open doors for people as everyone in my generation was, give it up if you want to live.

Suck it up, Mrs Hutcherson

I'm a firm believer that people who choose public life or take public actions incur public scrutiny.  As a rule that scrutiny should not be applied to the families of those in public life.

But what happens when a polarizing public figure agrees to speak at a Martin Luther King Jr. Day event at the school where his daughter attends.  And what if this public figure has argued in public debate that MLK Jr's civil rights movement for African Americans and the present day civil rights movement for GLBT people are not at all related. What if this public figure opposed every advance in civil rights for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people?

Wouldn't you expect that on MLK Jr. Day the focus would be on the ideal of equality and equal treatment for our fellow human beings?   Would it be outside the spirit of the day for people to question the choice of a speaker who so completely opposes applying MLK Jr's ideals of equal treatment to GLBT people?  Can such hypocrisy be allowed to pass unchallenged?

I think not.

By agreeing to speak at the MLK Jr. event, Hutcherson chose to bring his public positions to his daughter's school. 

The result is a public discussion about who are appropriate speakers for such events, what kind of vetting they should be subjected to, and what degree of freedom of speech principals, teachers and students should be allowed at such events.  A worthwhile debate, I think.

In a story that has since been removed from their web site, KOMO 4 reported on a Mount Si School Board Meeting but focused more on the family of Reverend Hutcherson than on the welfare of the children attending Mount Si High School.  For a more balanced report on the school board meeting, take a look at this article in the Seattle Times.

At the meeting Pat Hutcherson, a stay-at-home mother of four children, complained about the "harassment" that their family is suffering in the wake of her husband's speech at the school assembly: 

It was standing room only at the school board meeting as Pat discussed the harassment that has followed the couple and their four children since her husband spoke at an assembly at Mount Si High School on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day.

“My family is boldly called names like 'bigot', 'homophobe' and we’ve been permanently branded in the valley,” she said.

I don't know whether Pat Hutcherson or her children share the views of her husband, but they are not public figures and it is unfair for them to be called bigots or homophobes because of the views Reverend Hutcherson expresses.  If they share his views then they, like all of us, are accountable for their own choices.

It remains perfectly legitimate to call Reverend Hutcherson a bigot and a homophobe for his positions taken as a public figure.  Reverend Hutcherson must accept responsibility for agreeing to speak at the assembly - he crossed the line that separated and protected his family from his public positions and actions.  Now he has compounded his error by turning the issue into one of his public causes.

At the school board meeting Pat Hutcherson made the observation that:

"In the three weeks since the assembly our life has been anything but back to normal. 

It is unfair if they are incorrectly being called "bigots" and "homophobes", but I find it incredibly difficult to feel sorry for their current situation. 

What they are experiencing is the smallest taste of what it is like to be gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender in this country - and it is so much worse when you are in high school. 

GLBT adults and children don't have to take a controversial position to be called "faggot" or "dyke" or "homo" or "lesbo" or "trannie".  We don't have to be connected with a polarizing public figure to be attacked and beaten on the street.

We just have to exist.

To Mrs Hutcherson I say this - if we have to deal with the prejudice that your husband helps create and perpetuate in our lives, then you have to deal with the consequences he creates in yours.

Suck it up.

UPDATE: Reverend and Mrs Hutcherson are pushing hard to have the two teachers who spoke out at the MLK Day assembly removed from the school.

Can't see the forest for the trees

In a very "energetic" comment on this post someone styling themselves "mighty dr" took me to task for failing to fact check my own post.  Here's the indictment:

#94579

Posted by unregistered user at 2/4/08 4:07 p.m.

Gay Curmudgeon - since you're all about fact-checking and making sure that others are CORRECT in their statements on this blog, how about you correct yours!!! Hutcherson has NEVER and I repeat NEVER advocated for special rights for anyone based upon the color of their skin, their ethnicity nor their religion! It's unfortunate that you can't recognize that one can believe that the existing law is sufficient without you labeling them a HATER and a BIGOT. Ahhh, yes, tolerance - it's so progressive.
mighty dr

It's hard to know for sure, but I'm guessing that they are taking issue with this sentence from my post:

They ignore Hutcherson's objections to all civil rights for GLBT people including his well documented opposition to anti-discrimination and hate crimes protections which he wholeheartedly supports for race, ethnicity and religion.

If the biggest problem you have with my rebuttal is that you don't think Hutcherson supports hate crimes and anti-discrimination protections for race, ethnicity and religion, I'm fine with that.  It means you aren't able to defend his hypocrisy so I have to think that your objection is nothing more than a quibble for the sake of form.

Lets get this straight.  Your position is that Hutcherson, a black man who frequently trots out his experiences of and participation in the Black Civil-Rights movement is against the very legislation that movement brought into being and which protects him from discrimination and bias crimes.  Uh-huh.

In June 2007 Hutcherson along with 29 other black pastors objected to adding sexual orientation and gender identity to the existing Hate Crimes legislation that protects them on the grounds of their race and religious belief.  In the poster where they made their case, they said the following (emphasis is mine):

We are African Americans, though we represent thousands of Christian leaders of all races.  We understand more clearly than most the dangers of racially motivated violence.  But we also recognize the threat to religious liberty from labeling biblical teaching as "hate".  The Black community needs a free black pulpit. Indeed, ALL Americans need free pulpits

They didn't oppose the whole category of Hate Crimes laws and demand their repeal.  That's because, as the highlighted text shows, they know that these hate crime laws protect them under race, ethnicity and religion.  The Black Civil Rights movement of the 1960s was all about getting rights and protections for African Americans and anti-discrimination and hate crimes legislation is part of that history.

I'm reluctant to say it "mighty dr", but if you really think Hutcherson didn't ever support and doesn't currently support the hate crimes and anti-discrimination laws of which he is a beneficiary you are incapable of critical thinking.

I did not call Hutcherson a "bigot" or a "hater" in my response at all, despite ample evidence that he is a bigot, behaves in a bigoted fashion and evangelizes bigotry.

I only called him a hypocrite, which he most certainly is.

Hacks Hallow Hutcherson Hypocrisy

The comment by Michaelsclass (#93790) on this post contains so much misdirection, untruth and distortion that it cries out for fact checking and rebuttal.

The nub of Kit McCormick's objection was what she saw Hutcherson as hypocritical in his simultaneous support of civil rights for African Americans and vehement opposition to civil rights for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people.

The commenter willfully ignores that it is Hutcherson's hypocrisy that is at issue.  They ignore Hutcherson's objections to all civil rights for GLBT people including his well documented opposition to anti-discrimination and hate crimes protections which he wholeheartedly supports for race, ethnicity and religion. The many legal inequalities that GLBT people suffer are ignored and the commenter focuses on the singular hot-button issue of same-sex marriage. 

Chalk one mark into the "Misdirection" column.

Then the commenter cherry picks a single definition from a five year old dictionary that is nominally "current" (not available online), to whit:

The dictionary definition of marriage is "the legal union of a man and a woman in order to live together and often to have children." Source: The 2003 Oxford American Dictionary of Current English. It's been the definition for more than two thousand years.

Firstly, there is some argument about the actual edition year. 1999 is the main edition and the online version carries edition dates of 2002 and 2003. The complete definition of marriage from the 1999 edition is:

The Oxford American Dictionary of Current English

marriage   /márij/ n.
1. the legal union of a man and a woman in order to live together and often to have children.
2. an act or ceremony establishing this union.
3. one particular union of this kind (by a previous marriage).
4. an intimate union (the marriage of true minds).
5. (Cards) the union of a king and queen of the same suit.
by marriage   as a result of a marriage (related by marriage).
in marriage   as husband or wife (give in marriage; take in marriage).

According to the plurality of Reference librarians I spoke to including those at the Seattle Public Library and the Library at the University of Washington, the Oxford English Dictionary and Merriam-Webster are considered the more commonly accepted citation sources with The American Heritage Dictionary as an outlier.  The source you cite is seldom used based on the number of copies available in WorldCat.org.

The Oxford English Dictionary (SECOND EDITION 1989) defined the primary meaning of marriage as:

marriage, n.

1. a. The condition of being a husband or wife; the relation between married persons; spousehood, wedlock.

Note that even in the 1989 definition, there is no prescription that the marriage pairing is only husband and wife.  This framing includes same-sex and opposite-sex couples equally.

Examining the latest revisions to the OED as of December 2007  includes the addition of an explicit reference to same-sex usage:

marriage, n.

1. a. The condition of being a husband or wife; the relation between persons married to each other; matrimony.
The term is now sometimes used with reference to long-term relationships between partners of the same sex.

Cherry picking a single definition from one non-canonical source that happens to support your contention is dishonest. 

Add a mark in the "Untruth" column.

The claim that marriage has had a single monolithic definition for two thousand years is preposterous.  Marriage has had different meanings in different cultures and across different times. Examining the full definitions from the abovementioned dictionaries makes it clear that marriage has at various times been defined as polygamous, a property contract, a political contract, an act of barter, an act of kidnapping, and an act of commerce. It also denies the rich historical and cultural record of accepted same-sex unions and marriages.

What is most interesting is what is not there.  There is no reference to marriage being for children or any requirement for procreation and the rearing of children in order to enter into a marriage.  More about that in a moment.  Then the commenter states:

In the United States, all people are treated equally under the law - all PEOPLE are equal. But all RELATIONSHIPS between people are NOT equal - because all relationships do not provide equal benefits to society. Men and women who decide to marry are afforded special privileges because American society long ago decided that encouraging men and women to have children - and raise them together for the rest of their lives - provides a unique benefit to society. Creating children, especially, is a benefit that can not be provided or duplicated by any other form of relationship.

Both the first and last statements in this paragraph are untrue.  All people are not treated equally when their rights are parsed as you have attempted to do. The supreme law of the land, The United States Constitution, makes no such distinctions. 

Let's add a mark under "Distortions".

Children can be and are raised within opposite-sex or same-sex couples or by single people not in any kind of durable relationship.  Sex and conception are not bounded by relationships and orientation. According to the U.S. Census Bureau data from 2000 examined in The Williams Institute's "Census Snapshot: United States" in December 2007, 20% of all same-sex couples in the United States are already raising children under the age of 18 years.  These same-sex couple meet the child-raising test you seem to be proposing, yet despite being parents they don't qualify for the "special privileges" you defined.

Many couples marry with no intent to ever have children or past the age of child-rearing.  If your claim were true, then why would they be allowed to marry at all and be afforded the "special privileges" that accrue only to couples raising children.

There's another mark under "Untruths".

So, providing special benefits to married men and women is NOT illegal discrimination, nor is it unfair. Illegal discrimination - and unfairness - occurs ONLY when two things that are the SAME are treated DIFFERENTLY. The union of a man and a man (or a woman and a woman) is NOT equal in every way to the union of a man and a woman. The relationships are truly different - so it is entirely fair to accord them different privileges.

Same-sex and opposite-sex relationships are fundamentally the same in all relevant dimensions.  You've made no cogent argument to the contrary. 

Regardless of it's current legality, providing "special benefits" to married opposite-sex couples that don't apply to same-sex couples is discrimination.  As with many other injustices like legal slavery and miscegenation laws, they just haven't been determined to be illegal - yet.

Because providing special privileges to men and women who marry is NOT unfair in any way, gay rights activists have devised an UNDERHANDED WAY to acquire the privileges of marriage while circumventing the will of the majority: They seek to change the very definition of marriage, thereby automatically conferring the privileges of marriage on same-sex couples. 

The argument you are making that something isn't wrong because it isn't illegal is entirely fallacious. The supreme law of the land, the United States Constitution says that providing "special privileges" to one group of citizens over another group is unfair as do many U.S. State Constitutions. It is frequently because many State Constitutions make it clear that discrimination is unfair that civil rights for same-sex couples has moved forward at all.

In response, almost every state in the union has passed "defense of marriage" laws and amendments - essentially using the law and state constitutions as dictionaries! It's silly that such laws have to be passed and upheld, but they do.

It is because this discrimination will ultimately be found unconstitutional and unacceptable that state and federal politicians have been passing so-called "Defense of Marriage Acts" (DOMA) to slow down the pace of progress.  This bears more than a passing resemblance to the Black Codes used to regulate and restrict the advance of civil rights and liberties for African-Americans.

Marriage is "the legal union of a man and a woman in order to live together and often to have children." Because this is different from all other forms of relationship, and provides unique benefits to society, we afford special privileges to men and women who marry. What is so hard to understand?
If gay activists want to be afforded the same privileges as men and woman who marry, then they must convince the majority that their "gay marriage" relationship deserves them.
So far, they haven't. And changing the definition of marriage - treating us all as fools - will not work.

Your opening statement is misleading and the definition you are using doesn't jibe with the three most authoritative dictionary sources I cited.  Legally, marriage requires nothing regarding children whatsoever.  The issue of raising children is just the latest in a long list of "reasons" why same-sex couples should not be given the same rights as opposite-sex couples. A bad "reason", as it happens, since it ignores the 20% of same-sex couples who are already raising children today in the United States.

Public opinion continues to show strengthening support for recognition of same-sex relationships.  In a nationwide ABC News/Facebook Poll conducted in December 2007, 54% of respondents said that same-sex couples "should be allowed to form legally recognized civil unions giving them the legal rights of married couples in areas such as health insurance, inheritance and pension coverage". 

How big a majority of public opinion supporting same-sex relationships do we need before you accept the the advance of civil rights?

Experience has taught me that a "gay activist" is anyone who objects to the discrimination they experience and refuses to accept it in silence.   Not at all unlike the "uppity negro" stereotype used to put down African Americans in the wake of the Black Civil Rights Movement.

But you know this issue isn't about civil marriage equality at all. 

It's about gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people being treated equally and fairly in any way.  Kit McCormick couldn't sit silently while a vocal opponent of GLBT civil rights reminisced about the hardships he suffered before securing his own rights.  Silence became intolerable when facing an oppressor who hides behind his own experience of oppression and uses it as a shield.

The hypocrisy was too stark.

Dictionary Definitions of Marriage

Discussion of civil marriage equality for same-sex couples often ends up in a discussion about what the word "marriage" actually means and it's history.  This post is a distillation of my recent research into the most authoritative dictionary definitions for marriage. 

This post exists so that each time someone pulls out a five or ten year old definition from a second or third tier dictionary to argue that marriage doesn't include same-sex couples I don't have to cite the full dictionary definitions in my rebuttal and can link to this post.

 

The Oxford English Dictionary (SECOND EDITION 1989) defines the primary meaning of marriage as:

marriage, n.

1. a. The condition of being a husband or wife; the relation between married persons; spousehood, wedlock.

Note that even in the 1989 definition, there is no prescription that the marriage pairing is only husband and wife.  This framing includes same-sex and opposite-sex couples equally.

Examining the latest revisions to the OED as of December 2007 (Premium service via my membership at the Seattle Public Library so I can't link to it) includes the addition of an explicit reference to same-sex usage (literary citations from the text excised for the sake of brevity):

marriage, n.

1. a. The condition of being a husband or wife; the relation between persons married to each other; matrimony.
The term is now sometimes used with reference to long-term relationships between partners of the same sex.

b. in marriage: in or into wedlock (now arch.). to give (also conjoin, join, take) in (also to, into) marriage: to give (join, etc.) as husband or wife. but marriage: unmarried (Sc. Obs.).

c. A vow or contract of marriage. Chiefly in to break (also keep) one's marriage. Obs.

d. A particular instance of matrimony between a husband and wife; a matrimonial alliance.

e. With modifying word, as group, communal, etc.: a system understood to exist in some cultures, religious groups, etc., by which each of the men in a small community is regarded as married to each of the women. Cf. plural marriage n. at PLURAL adj. and n. Special uses.

2. a. The action, or an act, of getting married; the procedure by which two people become husband and wife.

b. A wedding ceremony; wedding festivities. Now chiefly Sc. and S. Asian.

c. In phrases denoting the means or custom by which a spouse is acquired, as marriage by capture, marriage by exchange, marriage by purchase.

3. A dowry (in quot. 1465, that given by a father for his son). Cf. MARITAGE n. 2. Obs.

4. A person viewed as a prospective husband or wife; a (good or bad) match. Also: a spouse (rare). Obs.

5. fig. and in extended use.

a. An intimate union; a merging or blending of two things.

b. Cards. In bezique, pinochle, and related games: the holding of a king and queen of the same suit in a hand, which scores points when declared. Cf. MARRY v. 11.

c. (An act of) industrial or commercial union; a merger.

d. An antique assembled from components differing in provenance, date, etc.; the assembling of such an object. Cf. MARRIED adj. 2c.

The same edition of the OED also contains a definition of "gay marriage":

gay marriage n. a relationship or bond between partners of the same sex which is likened to that between a married man and woman; (in later use chiefly) a formal marriage bond contracted between two people of the same sex, often conferring legal rights; (also) the action of entering into such a relationship; the condition of marriage between partners of the same sex.

Merriam-Webster's definition of marriage is:

marriage, noun

 

1 a (1): the state of being united to a person of the opposite sex as husband or wife in a consensual and contractual relationship recognized by law (2): the state of being united to a person of the same sex in a relationship like that of a traditional marriage <same-sex marriage> b: the mutual relation of married persons : wedlock c: the institution whereby individuals are joined in a marriage

2: an act of marrying or the rite by which the married status is effected; especially : the wedding ceremony and attendant festivities or formalities

3: an intimate or close union <the marriage of painting and poetry — J. T. Shawcross>

Even The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language (Fourth Edition - 2000) includes same-sex couples in the definition of marriage:

marriage

NOUN:
1a. The legal union of a man and woman as husband and wife. b. The state of being married; wedlock. c. A common-law marriage. d. A union between two persons having the customary but usually not the legal force of marriage: a same-sex marriage. 2. A wedding. 3. A close union: “the most successful marriage of beauty and blood in mainstream comics” (Lloyd Rose). 4. Games The combination of the king and queen of the same suit, as in pinochle.

ETYMOLOGY:
Middle English mariage, from Old French, from marier, to marry. See marry¹.