Christian school vandalized before anti-gay speaker’s appearance
BY ALLISON HORTON Staff Reporter ahorton@suntimes.com October 15, 2011 9:46PM
Several window panes and glass door panel were shattered at the Christian Liberty Academy, 502 W. Euclid Ave.
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Updated: December 3, 2011 8:04AM
Several window panes and glass door panel were shattered at the Christian Liberty Academy, 502 W. Euclid Ave., sometime before 8 a.m. Saturday, Arlington Heights Patrol Sgt. Thomas Boggs said.
Scott Lively, an anti-gay speaker and author, was scheduled to speak at the academy Saturday night at a dinner for the Naperville-based Americans for Truth Against Homosexuality (AFTAH).
Plastic bags containing bricks scrawled with messages such as “Shut down Lively” were thrown through the windows, said Calvin Lindstrom, pastor of the Church of Christian Liberty, which runs the school.
An envelope in one of the bags contained a handwritten message saying, “This is just a sample of what we will do if you don’t shut down Scott Lively and AFTAH. F--- Scott Lively. Quit the homophobic s---.”
Late Saturday, Peter LaBarbera, head of AFTAH, said he considered the incident to be a hate crime committed by gay activists.
“If this would have occurred at a gay church, there would have been a public outcry,” LaBarbera said.
Andy Thayer, co-founder of the Gay Liberation Network (GLN), said 30 people from his group and from the group Anti-Racist Action protested during Lively’s speech. He said he did not know who vandalized the academy but doubted it was the work of gay activists.
Police could not say whether the incident was being considered a hate crime.
AFTAH is listed as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center on its website.
Lively is also mentioned on the site for his “incendiary slanders of gay people” during a March 2009 visit to Uganda to support a proposed law that would impose the death penalty or life in prison for certain homosexual acts.
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