Teachers Want Anti-Gay Pastor Barred From School

[davidinalameda]

http://www.365gay.com/newscon05/06/060705seattle.htm

A Seattle area pastor who claims responsibility for Microsoft pulling its support for an LGBT civil rights bill should be banned from holding church services in a local high school a teachers union says.

Rev. Ken Hutcherson's Antioch Bible Church holds its services at Lake Washington High School in Kirkland. It's a deal that brings $140,000 a year into the school system, but, teachers say Hutcherson's extreme rightwing views are tarnishing the high school's reputation.

In a union newsletter President Kevin Teeley says that by allowing Hutcherson to use the facility it implies that the school district condones his beliefs.

[OldLeftieLawyer]

1. Church services rent a public high school to hold services?

Beautiful. Just goddamned beautiful.

Money, I guess, trumps the sacred rule of law that defines the separation of church and state in terms of no government involvement in the establishment of a religion.

But, now that the pastor isn't as politically correct (or even sane) as the teachers' union would like him to be, they want him gone.

They deserve him, IMHO.

[TaleWgnDg]

4. Ummmm, huh? If the public school allows other groups to "rent"

.
Ummmm, huh? If the public school allows other groups to "rent" its facilities (forum) after school, and of course these other groups are not associated with the school, then why not a church? First amendment freedom of speech for starters . . . I say he probably can do so. And I'd also say that he can get the ACLU to help him do so.

.

[OldLeftieLawyer]

7. You're forgetting the Establishment Clause

That's the part of the First Amendment that's significant here.

What's funny is that I would support the old bigot simply on on free speech grounds, but it's the prohibited intermingling of church and state that puts me off, and that's the establishment clause.

[One_Life_To_Give]

10. Not the first time I heard of this practice

I think this is fairly common practice. In the case of a new wchurch just starting. Or in the case of sudden loss of the church structure thru fire or other.

As long as all have equal access. I am not certain that this constitutes "Establishment"

[OldLeftieLawyer]

11. It does

The definition of 'establishment,' as it's used in the First Amendment, is not what you think it is. Read up on it. It's a grand history and a wonderful and surprisingly correct use of the word.

Our Framers were geniuses.

[getmeouttahere]

2. Hey, if they are willing to give up the revenue...

besides, who's to say the teachers were the ones who approved it, the district probably needed the money and decided to go to bed with this sleazeball

[davidinalameda]

3. this is one of those mega-churches

if he's paying rent of $140K--why can't he build his own church

[TaleWgnDg]

5. because he's probably living off of the proceeds? . . . n/t

[dsc]

6. They probably have a church building fund

which they are waiting to get to a certain point before they build. Many churches do that if they need a new building. I would imagine that the downpayment on a place for which the mortgage would be around 140k a year would be quite a bit of money.

On edit Assuming 5% interest he would be borrowing over 26 million which would require a downpayment of 2.6 million. At 9% the borrowed money is over 17 million requiring 1.7 million. In either case that is a pretty large amount of money. I got these figures using a TI 83 calculator's financial calculator.

[davidinalameda]

8. I thought we were boycotting everything from Texas

including TI

[dsc]

9. It belongs to my school

I have no real choice what calculators they choose. TI does a great job of staff development on how to use these things and have thus pretty much locked up the market.

[Chovexani]

12. Haha...the "building fund"

What a freakin' joke the "building fund" is. They might as well call it "The Pastor's Mercedes Fund". Truth in advertising and all.

I grew up in the black church and my mom was on our church's "Building Fund" and I can tell you some stories...