An Eastside preacher's anti-gay-rights stance has sparked a backlash in Kirkland and at the Lake Washington High School that plays host to his 3,500-member congregation every Sunday.
It's a dispute that pits Antioch Bible Church's First Amendment rights against a school-district Human Dignity policy. The policy prohibits discrimination based on race, creed, ethnicity, disability and sexual orientation.
The church's preacher, Rev. Ken Hutcherson, flexed his political muscle this past spring by threatening Microsoft with a nationwide evangelical boycott unless the software behemoth backed off from its support of gay-rights legislation in Olympia.
Microsoft seemed to cave in to the pressure, only to reverse its stance later, but Hutcherson's boycott threat was "the straw the broke the camel's back," according to Lake Washington Education Association president Kevin Teeley.
"When they cross the line and enter the political and legislative arena ... it becomes bigotry and intolerance," the union president said of Hutcherson and other church members. Moreover, crossing that line also violated the district's Human Dignity policy and blurred the line separating church and state, said Teeley, who is openly gay.
It's not quite that simple, according to the American Civil Liberties Union, but the church's stance didn't set well with many of the teachers at Lake Washington. "I started receiving a lot of complaints from staff members at the school," Teeley said.
School principal is church member
"The church has a very high profile at Lake Washington High School," he said, adding that the school's principal, Mark Robertson, is a member of Hutcherson's congregation.
And that affects both students and faculty members, according to Teeley. "The kids feel he believes all this anti-gay stuff," he said. And staff members don't feel comfortable challenging the church's anti-gay stance because Roberston is a congregation member, Teeley added.
Church vans are always parked on school property, people come to the high school thinking it's the church office and Hutcherson posed for TV cameras in front of the school during interviews about the threatened Microsoft boycott, Teeley complained.
"This church has almost taken over the school," he said, adding that the church's activities are so intertwined with Lake Washington High that it looks like its services are an endorsed school activity.
In addition, the appearance every week of 3,500 worshipers at a school that holds only 1,200 students creates its own set of problem, according to Teeley.
Diapers left in trash cans
"It's a huge impact every Monday," he said of diapers being left in trash cans, blackboards being erased in classrooms used for Sunday School, and property that turns up missing, among other hassles. "Staff members have to lock up everything on Fridays," Teeley said.
Anitoch Bible Church pays the school district between $130,000 and $140,000 a year in rent, depending on the number of Sundays involved, said Barbara Posthumus, the coordinator of business services for the school district.
That sounds like a lot of money, but Teeley disagreed. "It's really a drop in the bucket," he said of a school-district budget that is $171.9 million for the 2004-05 year. "I would argue," he added, "that the amount of wear and tear at the school is more significant than the rent they collect."
Lee Bates, a former librarian at Lake Washington who has since retired, echoed Teeley's comments. "In the four years I was there, I had to spend 20 to 30 minutes every Monday morning cleaning up," said Bates, who added that he and other teachers complained frequently about the mess the church members made.
Bates said he had complained to the school board and the superintendent about the church's presence at Lake Washington. "I just think this is wrong," he said.
"We're taught as staff people to respect all of our students, but here again, we're allowing a church that clearly discriminates to rent public space (at the school)."
City Council received complaints
Kirkland City Council member Joan McBride said she had received a number of calls and several e-mails from constituents about the issue. "And all of them were very, very concerned about what they perceive to be discriminatory remarks by the pastor," she said.
McBride also finds it ironic that the Lake Washington High School has a Gay-Straight Alliance club that is sanctioned by the school, which also provides a faculty advisor. She said it was the first such alliance on the Eastside. McBride also has a son at the school who is in a Peace Club. "He's very concerned (about the church), and so are a number of his friends," she said.
The city council has asked to have the issue put on the agenda for its next quarterly meeting with school superintendent, Dr. Don Saul, McBride said. But speaking as a private citizen and a mother, she added that people should support their children no matter what lifestyle they choose, as long as it's healthy. "Anything that fosters discrimination in this day and age is just not acceptable in Kirkland schools - or anywhere," McBride stressed.
Posthumus said that Antioch is one of 11 church groups the rent school-district space, but Teeley believes that practice may need to be revisited. "The school board really needs to take a look at its own internal policies when they rent facilities," he said. "I hope at the very least that the district tightens its policies up to prevent a church group from spewing hate."
Bates also thinks the school board needs to take a closer look at its rental policies, but he doesn't hold out much hope that anything will change. "I think they will come up with rationales about how they can't do anything about it."
No one from Antioch Bible Church returned a call for comment, but the church appears to be on solid legal footing, according to Doug Honig, a spokesman from the ACLU.
School districts, he said, can rent space to non-profit groups as long as the school districts don't discriminate against one group over another, and as long as one group doesn't have a sweetheart deal so that they pay less rent than other organizations.
"They can't treat them differently (as renters) because of the content of their speech - or their views," Honig added.
Staff reporter Russ Zabel can be reached at rzabel@nwlink.[[In-content Ad]]
