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Wednesday, November 14, 2007

Yesterday’s Note From the Prayer Warrior

posted by on November 14 at 11:45 AM

For those wondering what the heck Pastor Ken Hutcherson was talking about yesterday when he told his Prayer Warriors that he’d had a meeting with Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, and others:

Yesterday was Microsoft’s annual shareholders meeting. So Hutcherson only had a meeting with Bill Gates in the sense that anyone who owns one share of Microsoft (today trading at around $34/share) could have had a meeting with Bill Gates yesterday—a big, public meeting filled with other shareholders. Hutcherson made his comments not at a private sit-down with Microsoft executives, but during a shareholder Q&A session.

Someone in our comments who sounds like he was at the shareholders meeting described it this way:

Any stock holder can attend and speak at a stockholder meeting. So for the price of less than $40 you get into the room.

When they opened Q&A there was the customary pause caused by no one wanting to be first to speak. Hutch doesn’t have the restraint of a well moderated ego so he stepped into the vacuum immediately. As Hutcherson spoke, only one person clapped out of the 500-600 people present.

Hutch has been trying to get the attention he craves but nothing has been working. His last resort is to fallback on the one thing that worked for him - baiting Microsoft.

Another stockholder asked what they could do to counter the hateful ideas and actions of people like Hutcherson. There was a more enthusiastic wave of applause in the meeting. Brad Smith, Microsoft’s General Legal Counsel, responded with this:

“As a company, we’ve had a clear policy with respect to the way we treat our people, and we believe in that policy. It’s a policy that’s founded on non-discrimination, it’s a policy that we believe has served our employees well, it’s served our shareholders well, and I think that was reflected last year when all of our shareholders were asked to vote on that policy, and over 97 percent of you and all of our other shareholders stood up and agreed with us. And I think that it is precisely in that form that shareholders have the opportunity to continue to make their views known, and we very much appreciate that support.”

No Microsoft executive agreed to meet with him. Microsoft’s EEO policy in no way agrees with him.

Just another sad grab for PR from a man with a size 4 soul in a size 12 body.

RSS icon Comments

1

I still can't believe you let him call you "brah". Twice.

Posted by Mr. Poe | November 14, 2007 11:57 AM
2

And kudos to the P-I for including a blurb on Ken AND the follow-up.

P-I blog

Posted by JenK | November 14, 2007 11:58 AM
3

Aw, I sooo needed to hear that.

Stupid Ken.

Posted by monkey | November 14, 2007 12:00 PM
4

The FY07 shareholders meeting transcript link isn't working yet, but the webcast is -

http://www.microsoft.com/msft/events/default.mspx

Posted by JenK | November 14, 2007 12:20 PM
5

"Just another sad grab for PR from a man with a size 4 soul in a size 12 body"...

With a 2 inch penis...

Posted by Madge-YoursoakingINIT! | November 14, 2007 12:26 PM
6

I find myself more puzzled than anything. Why address the stock holder meeting of a company about a public policy/political issue they only have peripheral involvement in? I realize there's an element of PR grabbing, but as a way to get results it just seems, ummm, misguided and insane.

Posted by Bewildered | November 14, 2007 12:33 PM
7

I love that Smith's comment is miles more "Christian" than any word or action to come from Hutch.

Posted by christ! | November 14, 2007 12:53 PM
8

Hutch doesn't give a shit about results. He's witnessing. His fucked version of Christianity has him believing that he's doing God's work just by bringing it up, no matter how far-fetched it is. It's the same as the Jehovah's Witnesses ringing your doorbell even though they know some jackass is probably going to throw coffee on them, or the saddoes handing out Jesus fliers downtown.

And, of course, personal PR. Hey, he's in the fucking newspaper! We're talking about him -- it must be working.

Posted by Fnarf | November 14, 2007 12:56 PM
9

QUESTION: Good morning. My name is Ken Hutchison. I want to ask a couple of brief questions, no answers necessary. This is really letting you know, that do you know the greatest firestorm as stockholders is coming towards the corporations for the cost of taking up the fight that Christians, Evangelicals, Catholics, Jews, and Muslims have stood against for years, and the second thing is the reason why this firestorm is coming is because I came to Brad Smith and Stafford Mays, who works in Diversity. We had worked out a plan to work together to improve our community. Thank you, Brad, for that opportunity. Thank you, Stafford, for that opportunity. And Mr. Steve Ballmer, CEO, stood and called me a liar. Thus, we are putting together one of the largest, one of the most powerful groups to come to deal with Microsoft on issues that we believe is hurting our society. And the reason why we are excited about this is because we know that we have the power behind us.

And as I close, I would like to let you know that sometimes our love to work with you as a partner to improve our community, that fails; thus, we have to come another way, and I am probably one of the worst nightmares that this corporation can have. I'm a black man with a righteous cause, with a great deal and a whole host of powerful white people behind me. I hope to hear from you so we can work together. If not, you will be hearing from me again. Thank you.

CHRIS LIDDELL: Thank you, Mr. Hutchison. I'll ask if there are any other questions from the floor. I believe there's one over there. Someone can you take a microphone there. Number three, thank you.

Posted by cochise. | November 14, 2007 12:58 PM
10

BILL GATES: Matt Damon!

Posted by Mr. Poe | November 14, 2007 1:10 PM
11

Mr. Poe FTW!

Posted by Dono | November 14, 2007 1:23 PM
12

Hutch isn't just a bigot. He's a puffed-up moron of a bigot. That speech is the stupidest, most incomprehensible bag of garbage I've ever read. It doesn't even make any sense!

Posted by Fnarf | November 14, 2007 1:46 PM
13

"[600+ random people including me,]Bill Gates, Chairman; Steve Ballmer, CEO; Brad Smith, Executive Vice President of Legal; and Chris Liddell, CFO, were present in today’s meeting."


It's laughable that he made it sound like a private meeting in his prayer request.

Posted by Lake | November 14, 2007 1:53 PM
14

Too bad he didn't refuse to give up the mike. Then maybe we could have seen him get tased.

Posted by Julie | November 14, 2007 2:01 PM
15

"Don't tase me, Lord!"

Posted by jameyb | November 14, 2007 2:30 PM
16

Our snark aside, his treatises to his Prayer Warriors go out to thousands of the faithful. Those faithful, in turn, send him money. Lots of it.

Of course Bill Gates isn't going to pay any attention to him whatsoever. But his highly publicized attempt will net him a tidy bundle from the faithful.

Posted by SDA in SEA | November 14, 2007 2:36 PM
17

I repeat my comment from yesterday:

What a prick.

Posted by QuimbyMcF | November 14, 2007 2:43 PM
18

And I repeat mine...

What a fucktard!

Something like this happened in an all-employee meeting at Sprint HQ in Kansas City a couple of years ago, except that it was a white male employee who challenged the company on its non-discrimination and DP benefits policy.

The Sprint HR VP, Ned Holland, politely bitch-slapped the guy down, saying the same sort of thing that Brad Smith did, with the final line being "We're here to run a business that serves our customers and employees, not to debate social policy."

Posted by Ted Haggard | November 14, 2007 4:42 PM
19

I wonder if Hutch realizes what a Stepin Fetchit he made himself out to be (I am a powerful black man with a righteous cause and backed by powerful white people")? And who ARE those powerful whites? A Stranger expose, maybe?

Posted by Lin | November 14, 2007 10:16 PM

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