In the United States on Friday, Exodus featured speaker and megachurch pastor Ken Hutcherson led Snoqualmie, Washington, students in a school walkout and protest against silent opponents of antigay violence. In other words, he led a student protest in defense of antigay violence, which Hutcherson himself favors.

Exodus followed up today with an endorsement for the April 28 “Day of Truth” protest which supports antigay bigotry and refuses to even acknowledge — much less discuss or oppose — antigay violence in schools.

The moral failure of Exodus and other conservative religious organizations to stand in solidarity with antiviolence advocates is fueling new initiatives in the United States and abroad. (Read More)

Focus science coverup: While acknowledging his role in cultural warfare, Glenn Stanton of Focus on the Family declines to acknowledge that his employer covered up numerous false claims in a widely distributed and uncorrected press release about the alleged anthropology of marriage. Instead, he admits that publication of the release was premature, but he offers no retraction. Stanton has agreed to dialogue with an anthropologist on a watchdog blog, safely out of view of Focus’ subscribers and media contacts.

Investor activism: With the help of other religious conservatives, Exodus conference speaker Ken Hutcherson has launched a religious-right investor activist group to steer companies toward policies that discriminate against their workers who happen to be same-sex-attracted, according to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer columnist Robert L. Jamieson Jr. visited Exodus speaker Ken Hutcherson at his Seattle-area megachurch recently and today offered observations about Hutcherson’s betrayal of his own victory over discrimination — and Hutcherson’s exploitation of “ex-gays”. (Read More)

Update: ‘Repent America’ Leader Guilty: Michael Marcavage, whose Philadelphia-area band of followers uses megaphones to shout down public events, was found guilty of disorderly conduct for shouting down a Halloween festival last year in Salem, Mass. Previously, Exodus officially defended Repent America’s megaphone raid against a Philadelphia gay event as a matter of religious expression. (American Family Association) (More: The Salem News)

Focus on the Family Undermines Couples to ‘Save’ Marriage: Focus on the Family says that states must keep traditional families intact. How? By discriminating against all other families. Focus is upset at a same-sex couple that is suing the University of Hawaii after being excluded from married student housing on campus. Focus accuses the couple of “attacking marriage” by seeking respect as a couple and by honoring marital commitment. (Focus) (Update.)

Focus on the Family Thwarts Evangelicals, Defends Global Warming: Rejecting the guidance of the National Association of Evangelicals regarding creation care and environmental stewardship, Focus on the Family cheered a gathering of industry researchers and religious conservatives who blame climate change on ordinary cycles in the Earth’s history. (Focus)

Protest Planned against Ex-Gay Charlene Cothran: Chicago-based Gay Liberation Network will protest on March 13 against “ex-gay” Venus magazine publisher Charlene Cothran, who is developing an inflammatory new project: a speech entitled “How Homosexuality Destroys Families, Not Just Values.” (Queerty)

Hutcherson and the Legacy of MLK: On the Wallbuilders Live radio program, Exodus speaker Ken Hutcherson expands his campaign against his daughter’s school to include attempts to shut down the school’s Gay-Straight Alliance and end the school’s participation in The Day of Silence. Hutcherson warns that the school faculty should be glad he’s not still committing acts of violence against whites, but adds: “If they don’t fire these teachers, I’m going to sue ‘em and I’m going to ask them for their dreams. And then they’re going to mess around and laugh and I’m going to take their tongue out.” So much for Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream of nonviolent social unity and equal opportunity. (Right Wing Watch)

Lighter Side: Who cares what overpaid, over-blowdried anchors think? Anderson Cooper doesn’t — and doesn’t think the public should, either. (Romenesko)

After claiming last week that the ex-gay network had stepped back from public policy, Exodus admitted otherwise this week — but without admitting the apparent deception.

President Alan Chambers acknowledged to Ex-Gay Watch that his organization will continue as an active member of the Arlington Group, a political alliance of most major religious-right organizations that coordinates members’ policy choices and priorities.

Chambers claimed last week, “There isn’t anyone on staff that has policy in their job description and we don’t plan to spend money there.” On its 2006 filing of an IRS 990 form (PDF via Guidestar), Exodus reported a $5,000 donation to the Arlington Group; Exodus donations for 2007 are yet to be disclosed.

Chambers announced last week that Exodus’ withdrawal from public policy began in “August, 2007. 2008, however, marked a complete refocus on ministry.”

But as TWO has noted since then, Exodus board member Phil Burress (pictured), youth activist Mike Ensley, and speaker Ken Hutcherson continue to actively campaign for antigay and partisan political causes.

Just two days ago, Exodus executive vice president Randy Thomas boasted of his ongoing, expenses-paid trips to Washington, D.C., to provide political “friends” with ex-gay rhetoric and support.

And on Friday, board member Burress sued to hold taxpayer-subsidized church services in an Ohio public library. Burress’ self-led Citizens for Community Values (another Arlington Group member) opposes anti-bullying, tolerance, and sex-education programs in schools, and it is largely responsible for a 1993 Cincinnati vote to overturn local antidiscrimination law. A 2004 vote reversed the earlier vote.

In reaction to Exodus’ commitment to the Arlington Group, former ex-gay Peterson Toscano finds Exodus violating Biblical values under Chambers’ leadership.

Ken Hutcherson is selling tickets for a culture-war voyage from Seattle to Vancouver Island in British Columbia.

Hutcherson boasts:

New Encounter with God!

This time together will be an outstanding opportunity to stand for righteousness and renew our commitment to God as individuals, as couples, and as a group.

God has called us to be salt. Do you know what that really means? During our time together I will help you understand through the Scriptures what it really means.

Got [sic] wants to make sure your salt doesn’t stay in the shaker so let’s get shakin’ for Christ! Let’s run the race and reach for the prize.

Pastor Hutch

Feeling righteous? Reserve your tickets now — $659 for a deluxe stateroom — for Oct. 3-6, 2008. It isn’t clear whether unrighteous individuals are welcome on the cruise — but non-smokers clearly are not very welcome. Not only is smoking allowed in most public lounges and deck areas, it is also allowed in all staterooms — there are no non-smoking rooms.

• Exodus board member Phil Burress, speaking as the leader of Ohio-based Citizens for Community Values, says nominee-in-waiting John McCain has failed to mobilize so-called “values voters” (conservative Christians). Disappointed at the defeat of Southern Baptist former pastor Mike Huckabee in the GOP presidential race, Burress spells out what he thinks McCain must do to win support: “apologize to evangelical Christians and values voters for the way he has treated them over the years” and “strengthen his pledge to appoint strict constructionist judges to the Supreme Court.”
• Exodus conference speaker Ken Hutcherson prays for God’s help to hinder a woman’s right to visit her lesbian partner in the hospital — and to deny other basic rights to certain types of Americans who do not self-identify as African-American.
• Ex-gay activist groups including Abiding Truth Ministries and Stephen Bennett Ministries have mobilized to scare conservative Christian parents into keeping their kids home from school when antiviolence advocates commemorate an annual Day of Silence. Watchmen on the Walls, an organization co-led by Exodus conference speaker Ken Hutcherson, also is joining the campaign to stop antiviolence efforts in schools. Two gay and gender-variant youths were killed last month, one of them in an Oxnard, Calif., classroom. Since then, youths and young men have been assaulted in Florida and Georgia.

Ken Hutcherson, a popular speaker on the Exodus conference circuit, gave a sermon on recent Sunday. Columnist Anthony B. Robinson writes:

[Seattle psychologist Valerie] Tarico, a former staffer at Children’s Hospital and Regional Medical Center, was raised in a fundamentalist church. In recent months, she has made it her business to attend services at many of the large, conservative churches in the Seattle area, including Hutcherson’s, to see what’s going on.

On a Sunday when Tarico was present, Hutcherson was preaching on gender roles. During his sermon, Hutcherson stated, “God hates soft men” and “God hates effeminate men.” Hutcherson went on to say, “If I was in a drugstore and some guy opened the door for me, I’d rip his arm off and beat him with the wet end.”

“That was a joke,” Hutcherson said Friday, when I asked him about the comment. But it’s not really funny, is it?

Truth Wins Out has warned of Hutcherson’s recent ties to antigay violence in California and Europe. Yet, despite Hutcherson’s latest affirmation of violence against “effeminate” men, Exodus International stands by its man. There has been no official repudiation of Hutcherson nor of his statements and hate-group affiliations.

As one critic observed, Exodus’ admittedly effeminate executive vice president, Randy Thomas, should reconsider holding the door for Hutcherson at future Exodus speeches.

With Exodus promoting pro-violence activists such as “Hutch,” is it really surprising that Exodus leaders also campaign to exclude sexual orientation from existing state and federal hate-crime laws — and associate punishment of antigay violence with “thought crime“?

Hat tip: Box Turtle Bulletin