Offering frequent news and analysis from the majestic Evergreen State and beyond, The Cascadia Advocate is the Northwest Progressive Institute's unconventional perspective on world, national, and local politics.

Saturday, December 09, 2006

AP picks up on Hutcherson's initiative

We broke the news earlier this week on our podcast that Antioch Bible Church pastor Ken Hutcherson has filed an initiative to repeal ESHB 2661, the civil rights bill that was passed into law earlier this year, outlawing discrimination against Washingtonians on the basis of sexual orientation. Yesterday, the AP followed suit, putting out a short brief on the local wire:
A pastor opposed to new civil rights protections for gays and lesbians has filed an initiative to the Legislature to overturn them, but it's not likely to go anywhere since he would have to gather nearly 225,000 signatures by the end of the month.

Rev. Ken Hutcherson, pastor of Antioch Bible Church in the Seattle suburb of Redmond, filed the initiative on Nov. 28. The initiative, which has not yet been given a number and whose language has not yet been reviewed by the state code reviser's office, would remove the sexual orientation aspect of the state ban on discrimination in housing, employment, insurance and credit.

State lawmakers passed the gay civil rights bill in January after nearly 30 years of failed attempts by several longtime legislative sponsors. The law took effect in early June.

Hutcherson is out of the country until next week and was not available for comment.
Hutcherson is in Latvia, and has been sending near-daily "Notes from the Prayer Warrior" out to his supporters providing vague details of what he's doing over in Eastern Europe.

Obviously Hutcherson has no plans of attempting to qualify his initiative to the Legislature, but is clearly and quietly signaling his intentions. It's a draft run. He'll refile something that looks similar in January as an initiative to the people, or someone else will on his behalf.

Part of the reason he filed when he did seems to be to send a message to other figureheads in the local religious right that he intends to lead any effort to overturn the amendment to the anti-discrimination law. He's positioning himself. Whoever is seen to be in charge will likely get a media spotlight (that's why Tim Eyman rushed so quickly to file Referendum 65).

Hutcherson has done this before. He appeared in newspapers during the legislative struggle to get ESHB 2661 and its predecessor, ESHB 1515, approved in the first place, arguing against it, of course.

He tried to claim victory when Microsoft backed away from its decision to support the bill outright, saying a boycott he had threatened scared the company. Microsoft then came under pressure from equal rights groups and activists, and relented. We'll be keeping a close eye on his activities in the near future.

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