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’ get shakin’ for Christ! Let’ 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