By Matt Simonette

Staff writer

About 30 area activists attended a suburban protest against anti-gay activist Peter LaBarbera Oct. 24.

The protest, organized by Gay Liberation Network, took place at Christian Liberty Academy, 502 W. Euclid Ave., in Arlington Heights, where LaBarbera’s organization, Americans for Truth about Homosexuality, was holding holding a banquet.

Andy Thayer of GLN told CFP that his organization takes whatever opportunities it can to denounce LaBarbera as a bigot. He said that the norm in same-sex marriage campaigns had been to extol the “normalcy” of gay relationships. “But I think we’d get a lot more mileage by labeling the opposition as bigots,” he said. “probably 90 percent of Americans don’t want to have to do with people like that.”

He added, “That’s why he has been unsuccessful in getting an anti-gay referendum on the ballot.”

“In the context of a recession like this one, it’s remarkably easy for the far-right wing demagogues to get a hearing,” Thayer said. “People are afraid—of losing their jobs, of losing their house. It would be foolish for (GLN) to be complacent at a time like this.”

For more information, visit GayLib.net.