The “Prayer Warrior”, Pastor Ken Hutcherson, testified before the Washington state House of Representatives Judiciary Committee on Monday, in opposition to marriage equality. The video is making its way around the internet, so here is a transcript:
I am Pastor Ken Hutcherson of Antioch Bible Church; I’ve been a pastor for quite some time—been black for a lot longer than that. I was born and raised in Alabama, where blacks and whites didn’t get along very well, and I tried to be one of the main reasons they didn’t. I was extremely discriminatory toward whites. The only reason I played football, so I could hurt white people legally.
The problem is that you guys keep throwing up to us that this is a civil rights issue. There’s nothing civil rights about this. Nothing. It is not protected by the Constitution. And you’re throwing up in front of us over and over again that you should not allow the people to vote for this because it’s just not right for a civil rights issue. Well, you’re trying to make it a civil rights issue, but it isn’t. It’s not protected by the Constitution. The reason why the civil rights for me was taken to the Congress and not the people was because it was protected by the Constitution. So the people did not have a right to go against the Constitution unless the people voted to change the Constitution.
And it hasn’t been changed yet.
It is so important for you to understand that what you are asking me to do as an African-American, is accept what you’re going through because you’re uncomfortable. Not because you’re persecuted. Not because you’re hung in great numbers simply because of your color. I was born black. I am black. Gonna die black. And even Michael Jackson couldn’t get out of being black. So you gotta understand when you try to throw those things at me it does not hit. Does not hit at all. As a matter of fact, it’s kind of disturbing and very upsetting.
Upsetting because, you know, you talk about love, you talk about wanting that family and everything else, and you talk about the children. You know what? I got half-black kids. They’re worse than all-black kids, ’cause they’re discriminated against just as much. And you have passed laws that make sure if there’s any black in any kid, they’re considered African American even though I got married to the whitest white woman in the world.
So let’s do what’s right for kids. I would never bring my kids into a situation—if I love my kids—how you have berated your kids in front for emotional response—and Representative Pedersen, you are the worst. You brought four kids in here, and they was devastated. Hopefully they was devastated because they was in here, and not because they act that way all the time. But yet still it isn’t about the children. It isn’t about marriage. It is about you. And it is about you wanting your way, and you’ll use whatever and whoever you can to get it.
So I think this board should be absolutely ashamed of how you’re allowing kids to be used for an adult reason.
Thank you very much.
Obviously, there are some issues one might pick with Hutcherson’s argument, but this man is the face and voice of the heterosupremacist movement in the Evergreen State, so it’s probably best to just let him speak for himself.
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