Church website attack labeled a hate crime

Stacy J. Willis

Friday, Oct. 8, 1999 | 9:20 a.m.

Liberty Baptist Church's 23rd anniversary this week was tainted by an act some consider to be a hate crime.

The church's website was vandalized Monday -- instead of information about the congregation and services, those logging on to the site (www.libertybaptist.com) read "a message that said, 'the gay something or other strikes again,' among other hateful things and expletives," said the Rev. David Teis.

The episode points to the line between espousing arguably hateful beliefs from the pulpit -- which is legal -- and reacting to them with destruction of someone else's website -- which is illegal.

"We preach against homosexuality, and we think that it is a sin, so in that sense, we are anti-gay. We preach against all forms of sexual sin, from adultery to homosexuality. So we don't bash gays, unless those beliefs are considered bashing gays," Teis said.

Las Vegas gay activist Lee Plotkin said that the Baptists' stance on homosexuality is hateful and offensive, but that he does not endorse hacking into websites.

"Everyone's website should be their own domain for free expression," Plotkin said.

"But quite honestly, when you offend as many people as the Baptists offend, who knows who might react like this. Still, I can certainly say there's no organized scheme to (hack into websites)," Plotkin said.

Teis said he has no idea who the hacker might be, and he is uncertain whether the attack was a response to the church's anti-gay beliefs or if it was a random act of vandalism. But he is aware that his anti-gay message is not well-received by everyone.

"I preach a pretty hard message, and from time to time we have had people get up and leave who don't agree with me. But I just preach the Bible," Teis said. "But I don't know of anyone who has left specifically because of what I have preached about homosexuality."

The church contacted the FBI after discovering the vandalism. Although the FBI did record the information from the computer, a spokesman stopped short of saying the bureau would investigate the vandalism as a hate crime.

"We are apprised of the situation," FBI Special Agent Joseph Dickey said. "Any type of hate crime would be something the FBI covers. But all I can say at this point is that we took the information."

The designer of the Web page said that hacker cracked through the password and protected log-in and is, in his opinion, "an amateur or beginner hacker" because the site was not difficult to break into and because Liberty is a small church.

"There wasn't anything controversial on the site. It's just a church, so we didn't expect anyone would try to do something like this," said Miki Lekic of Studio 11, which designed the site.

"The FBI told me that they will keep the information but probably won't chase (the perpetrators) all the way unless it happens again," Lekic said.

The website has been fixed and Liberty Baptist is celebrating its 23rd year with a catered dinner at the church Sunday at noon.