“Save Our Sheriffs” emcee Larry Stickney is an individual with a long history of organizing to deny civil rights to same sex couples. Larry Stickney is also a Council Member Aide to Pierce County Council member Amy Cruver.[1]
A Washington State Director for the 1996 Pat Buchanan campaign, and former legislative aide in the State House of Representatives and Snohomish County Council, Stickney’s LinkedIn biography notes that he resigned from the Snohomish position in 2007 to “embark on a lengthy, challenging, expensive and ultimately perilous 2.5-year political battle to defend traditional marriage (defined as that between a man and a woman only)” – that is, to deny basic civil rights to same sex couples.[2]
In 2008, Stickney helped found and lead the Washington Values Alliance, an organization formed, in the anti-gay and anti-choice lingo of the Christian Right, to “defend human life, the institution of marriage, religious freedom, and Judeo-Christian values.”[3] In 2009, Stickney served as a board member and campaign manager for Protect Marriage Washington. The group led a failed fight to deny civil rights to same sex couples by opposing expanded rights for domestic partners. Also serving with Stickney as board members were state representative Jim McCune and then- state representative Matt Shea, who a state house-sponsored investigation found to have “planned, engaged in, and promoted a total of three armed conflicts of political violence against the United States government” from 2014 to 2016.[4]
Stickney continued his attacks on gay and lesbian civil rights as Executive Director of the Focus on the Family-affiliated Family Policy Institute of Washington State.[5]
From May 2020 to January 2021, Stickney left the state to serve as a full-time Field Coordinator for the far-right conspiracy-mongering John Birch Society in North Texas.[6]
In April 2025, Stickney posted a link to a Breitbart article titled “Trump Should Award Pat Buchanan Medal of Freedom,” responding, “I could not agree more. Buchanan is one of the great political minds of the last 50 years and is the grandfather of the America First movement.”[7]
Stickney also provides an example of how the far-right reactionaries of the early 2000s – who sought, for instance, to deny LGBTQIA+ civil rights, but not overturn the U.S. government wholesale – would morph into far-right revolutionaries in the current period. This was visible when his son, Matthew Stickney, was charged with four counts related to taking part in the January 6th insurrection.[8]
In a 2023 response to queries from KIRO 7 in Seattle, Larry Stickney said, “My son is a fine young man with a strong sense of right and wrong. I couldn’t be any prouder of him than I am today.” [italics in original][9]
Just one day after Donald Trump issued “sweeping blanket pardons and commutations for nearly 1,600 patriotic Americans prosecuted for the presence at the Capitol,” in the historical revisionist language of the regime, Larry Stickney posted to Facebook, “Great news, the corrupt-to-the-core Biden DOJ’s ridiculous January 6 case against my son Matt Stickney has been dismissed with prejudice!”[10]
Eric Lundberg, lead pastor at the Graham, Washington-based Living Word Lutheran Church and a speaker at the CSPOA event, responded to Stickney, “Celebrating with you all!! God is a God of Justice and Mercy! Vindication comes from the Lord Our God!” State legislator Jim McCune, also speaking at the event, would declare, “Praise God.” Pierce County GOP leader Dave McMullan replied, “Awesome.”[11]
All of these views are compatible with CSPOA leader Richard Mack’s recent rants about the events of January 6th, and with CSPOA CEO Sam Bushman’s fundraising appeal for the Oath Keepers, while leader Rhodes was en route to Washington, D.C., the day before the January 6th insurrection. Rhodes was convicted of Seditious Conspiracy, but pardoned by President Trump. Out of prison, Rhodes is attempting to rebuild the Oath Keepers.
The mix of topics of the day both repeated the broken record of standard CSPOA fare and hinted at what is to come from both CSPOA aims and this cadre of Pierce County officials and far rightists.
NOTES
[1] Larry Stickney. Linked In. Accessed January 13, 2026.
[2] Larry Stickney. Linked In. Accessed January 13, 2026.
[3] Washington Values Alliance. Articles of Incorporation. October 31, 2028. Washington State Corporations and Charities Filing System. https://ccfs.sos.wa.gov/#/BusinessSearch/BusinessFilings.
[4] Protect Marriage Washington. Political Committee Registration. Washington State Public Disclosure Commission. November 20, 2009. https://apollo.pdc.wa.gov/public/document?docid=1686989; CBS News. Washington State Approves Gay Partnerships. November 5, 2009. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/washington-state-approves-gay-partnerships/; Romo, Vanessa. Washington Legislator Matt Shea Accused Of ‘Domestic Terrorism,’ Report Finds. NCPR. December 20, 2019. https://www.northcountrypublicradio.org/news/npr/790192972/washington-legislator-matt-shea-accused-of-domestic-terrorism-report-finds.
[5] Mantyla, Kyle. Dobson’s Low Profile Hides Focus on the States. People for the American Way. Right Wing Watch. August 22, 2007. https://www.peoplefor.org/rightwingwatch/post/dobsons-low-profile-hides-focus-on-the-states; Larry Stickney. Linked In. Accessed January 13, 2026.
[6] Larry Stickney. Linked In. Accessed January 13, 2026.
[7] Lawrence Helge Stickney. Facebook. April 10, 2025. https://www.facebook.com/larry.stickney.9/posts/pfbid0FxAySK187dc7dUayhmgasNJZeHXiy6jUJsiDh6w3f4chV57b1jrwwKUM8vK8UTxwl
[8] Peterson, Jenna. Jan. 6 rioters with Snohomish County ties included in Trump pardons. HeraldNet. January 21, 2025. https://www.heraldnet.com/news/jan-6-rioters-with-snohomish-county-ties-included-in-trump-pardons/; Lee Lloyd. A January 6 defendant’s Google search history outlines a timeline of the Capitol riot events — and a reference to ‘Anchorman’ — law enforcement says. Business Insider. December 21, 2023. https://www.businessinsider.com/january-6-defendant-google-search-history-capitol-riot-lawsuit-stickney-2023-12?op=1
[9] Lomibao, Samantha. ‘I couldn’t be any prouder’: Father responds to son’s federal charges in Jan. 6 riots. KIRO7. December 28, 2023. https://www.kiro7.com/news/local/i-couldnt-be-any-prouder-father-responds-sons-federal-charges-jan-6-riots/.
[10] Lawrence Helge Stickney. Facebook. January 21, 2025. https://www.facebook.com/larry.stickney.9/posts/pfbid0eQB9EWxE8nKXnHrHGkWNijp3gbsjvvBHGTRC3D6zWW7WcB61FhEpJDZPvnBh1Wb4l; The White House. 01.06.2021. https://www.whitehouse.gov/j6/. Accessed January 13, 2026.
[11] Lawrence Helge Stickney. Facebook. January 21, 2025. https://www.facebook.com/larry.stickney.9/posts/pfbid0eQB9EWxE8nKXnHrHGkWNijp3gbsjvvBHGTRC3D6zWW7WcB61FhEpJDZPvnBh1Wb4l.
