A bill gay lobbyists championed for 30 years failed to garner passage in the Washington Legislature. The involvement of evangelicals appears to have at least played a role in its most recent failure.
Robert Higley of Washington Evangelicals for Responsible Government said a bill which would have given minority status to "sexual orientation," died on a 24-25 vote. It appears to be dead until 2006 at the earliest.
Higley said the legislation passed the Washington House of Representatives with "a good majority," then went to the Senate, where it was sidetracked in committee. Pro-gay lawmakers, however, used a parliamentary procedure to bring it to the floor of the Senate.
Gay activist publications have been quick to attribute the defeat to Microsoft — one of Washington's largest employers — and to the fact that the giant software company withdrew its long-time corporate support for the bill after a Seattle-area pastor challenged the company on its position.
Higley said, indeed, some of the credit for the bill's demise this time should go to Dr. Ken Hutcherson, pastor of the Antioch Bible Church in Kirkland, Wash., who testified against the bill before the state Legislature in Olympia and then took on Microsoft.
On Friday, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer issued a statement saying the corporate giant had changed its mind and would now support the bill, but for the two weeks since the vote, the company has been under fire from gay activists over the fact it had "caved in" — and withdrawn its support.
Though Hutcherson's involvement wasn't the only factor in the bill's demise, Higley said he played a prominent and inspired role.
"We had hearings in both the House and the Senate, and . . . Ken Hutcherson's testimony was good and effective," Higley said.
Hutcherson, an African-American, organized Seattle's Mayday for Marriage rally last October, in which thousands of people came to stand up for traditional marriage.
He told CitizenLink recently he decided to confront Microsoft in person when he heard the arguments being advanced for the bill.
"I went down (to the Legislature in Olympia), and that's when I heard the representatives from Microsoft that were giving testimony for the bill," Hutcherson said. "They were giving such strong testimony that even the chairman of the committee had to ask whether they were representing Microsoft as a company."
Technically, they may not have been representing the company, according to Higley, but the witnesses did speak as if they were conveying the company's endorsement. In fact, Hutcherson said, the Microsoft representatives specifically told the committee that the company liked the bill — "that it was great for the state, it was great for their business, it helped recruit people because they were a 'fair and open business' and that this bill should be passed."
That made Hutcherson upset.
"It was fine that Microsoft had that as their personal policy," he said. "But stepping outside of their four walls and trying to make their policy my policy was not going to go."
Why did he feel so strongly?
"Well, there are two major reason why a bill of this sort gets under my skin," Hutcherson said. "The first one is the biblical issues. Individuals already have protection that is on the books, but what (gay activists are) trying to do is make it so that a group gains minority status."
Giving homosexuals minority status would be "absolutely terrible" for society, Hutcherson said. He noted everywhere that has happened there have been dire implications for the church.
"In Denmark and Sweden, the Netherlands and now Canada, pastors that have preached out of the Gospels — out of the Word — that homosexuality is wrong, have been threatened with hate speech," Hutcherson said, "and there have been several pastors that have been thrown in jail. So if we sit back as Christians and let these bills be passed, it's just a matter of time before it enters the church, even though (the bill's sponsors) say it won't."
There was another reason why he was upset.
"They are saying that someone's sexual orientation (should give them) the same status that I have as an African-American," Hutcherson said, "and . . . that what somebody does in their bedroom is equal to what I went through as an African-American (growing up in Alabama). No way."
That's why Hutcherson decided to take direct action — and started using the "b" word — boycott.
"I called Microsoft," he said. "We had two to three conference calls, and then set up two face-to-face meetings, and (I) let them know that if they did not back-off this bill they were going to have a whole bunch of problems. And they said, 'Why do you want to bring a boycott?' And I said, 'Look, the number one thing is, the boycott doesn't have to work, it's the negative publicity you don't want.' "
Hutcherson, who had played professional football for the Seattle Seahawks and was well-known in the community with a reputation for "telling it like it is," said he was prepared to organize a boycott of Microsoft to let people know the computer giant had no business trying to force its social beliefs on the country.
Microsoft executives, he said, tried to imply that he was "just trying to make a name for myself and get something from them."
"And I said, 'Let's get something clear real quick. My name is Dr. Ken Hutcherson, not Jesse Jackson. I am not here to try to improve my name, try to improve my church or try to get family members jobs here. My deal is, this is what's right to do before God, and if you don't do it, you're going to wish a million times you had.' "
Microsoft, for its part, subsequently withdrew its support. The company promised to respond to CitizenLink's request for an interview, but did not do so before press time.
"Absolutely, they listened (to me)," Hutcherson said. "In the news lately, they have been saying that they did not change their position on the status of the bill, but they had changed it before I came, before the Legislature even started. But they listened."
Indeed, published reports indicate that, in a memo circulated companywide just after the vote, CEO Ballmer had told employees that the company had decided before the legislative session not to make passage of the bill a priority.
"If that was true," said the man whom congregants call Hutch, "then they had a problem, because the only thing they had to do when I first called, the very first time, is to say, 'Your concerns are not valid because we've already changed to a neutral stance.' They didn't tell me that until the fourth meeting. And that was when they said, 'We have changed our view on the bill, and we're not going to promote the bill, we're going to take a neutral stance on the bill.' "
Hutcherson, meanwhile, isn't surprised Microsoft may now be waffling back and forth. There are many homosexual activists in the company's ranks, he said. But then, this straight-speaking pastor also said he plans to keep on with his opposition.
"If they make that change, then, Lord willing, I will be there to let them know that they better not make that change."
It's an attitude Hutcherson hopes others in the Church will adopt when they face the homosexual lobby. The key to getting the Church to stand up for truth, the activist minister said, is for the Church to stand together.
"The number one thing is, we should approach it in power and in unity," he said. "We can accomplish things together that we can never accomplish separately, and that is my big motto — What can we do together that we can never do separately?"
Hutcherson said when Christians finally learn to stand on these issues, we've got all the power we need to be successful.
"When I walked in there, I talked about the fact that I'm a citizen, I've got people behind me. We vote. We vote morals — and if you don't believe it, look at the last presidential election."
FOR MORE INFORMATION
To learn more about the homosexual agenda for America, and how Christians can counter the gay movement, CitizenLink recommends the book, "The Homosexual Agenda: Exposing the Principal Threat to Religious Freedom Today," by Alan Sears and Craig Osten.
