Anti-gay pastor scorches NOM in choice interview

Ken Hutcherson

Anti-gay Washington state pastor Ken Hutcherson has been described by many (this blogger included) as a homophobic, self-conceited loudmouth.

How strange it is that two of those attributes which has been seen as a bane to lgbt equality has now become positive qualities.

Whatever the case may be, the National Organization for Marriage has clearly done something to infuriate Hutcherson and he does not plan to go "gently into that good night."

 Instead, he is becoming vocal as to how that anti-gay group lost their fight against marriage equality in Washington state two weeks ago, including hurtling charges of racism against NOM. 

In probably his most public interview to date on the matter - with gay activist Michelangelo Signorile on Signorile's SiriusXM OutQ radio program - Hutcherson continues not to hold back anything back.

 Highlights:

 "I said to [the National Organization for Marriage], 'You think I’m controversial because I don’t look white. I don’t talk white. I don’t act white. And I am not that milquetoast-looking kind of guy that’s is going to be calm about everything. I’ve got a passion on what’s right. I’ve got a passion, and I will stand on what I think biblical principles are. If that’s controversial, then we’ve got a problem, and we’ll never win another election on anything.”

 “I think they (NOM) went weak, extremely, to the point where the national organizations wanted to be a little bit more loving, to look more to point of putting no bad taste in anyone’s mouth.”

“The National Organization for Marriage tried to win the moderates. And if you’re going to win the moderates then you got to stay away from what they call hard-line biblical principles.So they tried to come with the psychological and sociological argument." 

Hutcherson claimed he was especially against NOM's infamous wedge strategy of pitting the black and gay communities against each other on the subject of marriage equality:

 "I was totally against that approach, because it’s wrong. That’s not what we do to win, is to show our prejudice." 

You can listen to the entire interview here (and might I suggest that you wear a bib because it is CHOICE!)

I'm personally interested as to how NOM going to taper this down. The lgbt community has dealt with Hutcherson as an antagonist, so he can't really hurt us.

However, as a seemingly ally of NOM who has turned his back on the group and is now labeling them as racist, Hutcherson is like a nuclear bomb.

Pretending like Hutcherson doesn't exist will not help NOM's image. And Hutcherson has never been one being quiet about his "existence."

Poor NOM. The anti-gay group is slipping BADLY

Maggie Gallagher of NOM

A friend showed me the following tweet from the National Organization for Marriage:

NOM ‏@NOMupdate

Problems with #SSM in the Netherlands: little demand, instability, losing rights to religious exemptions.. http://myop.us/XzhrZI  @MarriageNZ

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The tweet links to New Zealand version of an anti-marriage equality webpage (which I am certain NOM has a lot to do with. The title of the page is called Protect Marriage - One Man. One Woman. That's Marriage.)

The page in question outlines supposed problems with marriage equality in the Netherlands by spotlighting certain statistics. One in particular stood out. It was about the supposed instability of gay men:

Instability of relationships

Recent research from a major British medical journal AIDS on male same-sex relationships in the Netherlands — arguably one of the most gay friendly cultures on earth — indicates gay men have a very difficult time living by the values of marriage. This study found that steady homosexual relationships in the very gay-friendly city of Amsterdam, on average, last only 1.5 years. The study also found that gay men in steady relationships there have an average of eight partners a year outside of their current relationships.

The footnote says this citation is:

Maria Xiridou, et al., “The Contributions of Steady and Casual Partnerships to the Incidence of HIV Infection Among Homosexual Men in Amsterdam,” AIDS, 17 (2003): 1029.38.

Now some of you will point out the easy distortion with this study, i.e. the date. The study is nine years old.  So much "recent research."

However, don't leave it at that. There are so many other morsels of distortion behind the usage of this study.

Xiridou's study was not designed to look at married gay couples. It was designed to "access the relative contribution of steady and casual partnerships to the incidence of HIV infection among homosexual men in Amsterdam and to determine the effect of increasing sexually risky behaviours among both types of partnerships in the era of highly active antiretroviral therapy."

No lesbian couples were interviewed. For this study, Dr. Xiridou received her information from the Amsterdam Cohort Study of Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) and AIDS Among Homosexual Men. To gain this information, researchers studied 1,800 gay men between the years of 1984- 2000. Same sex marriage was legalized in the Netherlands in 2001, thus making the information irrelevant to points about gay marriage. Information for the Amsterdam Cohort Study is found here.

In other words, Xiridou's study is being used to demonize married gay couples when in fact no married gay couple took part in the study.

Way to go, NOM.  In your eagerness to demonize same-sex couples, you take part in a distortion that easy to refute.

Happy Thanksgiving, you turkeys.