GW students and D.C. residents joined forces Monday morning to stand against the Westboro Baptist Church, a group notorious for its vehement anti-gay protests. Westboro members were in the District this week, conducting protests around the city and at George Mason University in Virginia. When the Church announced it would be demonstrating outside the White House Monday, two GW students decided to oppose the group.
Students Colin MacDonald and Ian Goldin, who organized the counter protest, estimated that their demonstration drew between 80 and 100 people at its peak, many of whom were GW students. The protest was organized entirely through Facebook over the past week.
Organizing the counter-protest was an easy task, MacDonald said in an interview.
"We said, 'Hey look, the Westboro Baptist Church is coming to town, and this is their hateful message, and we want to show that here in D.C., we're not okay with that,' " he said, adding that he and Goldin reached out to a number of gay and lesbian groups across D.C. "Basically it's sort of a universal thing to not really agree with what they say because just about any group can find something that causes them to be hated by the Westboro Baptist Church."
By the time they arrived at the White House Monday, Westboro members had already marched at various embassies in D.C, as well as at George Mason.
Shirley Phelps-Roper, daughter of Westboro founder Fred Phelps, said Westboro members targeted George Mason because students there had elected a gay man as their homecoming queen earlier this year.
Despite their small numbers - only five participants marched up and down Pennsylvania Avenue - church members were impossible to miss. Each carried at least one sign, although some carried up to four, with messages like, "Pray for more dead soldiers."
Phelps-Roper said her church had come to the White House to protest President Obama, who she referred to as "the Anti-Christ." The group's main message states that they believe problems in the United States is a result of what they call America's "deliberate rebellious indifference to the standards of God."
Counter-protestors met Westboro with signs reading, "God doesn't hate" and "Troops are heroes." MacDonald and others also led the group in cheers such as "Two, four, six, eight, how do you know your kids are straight?"
Counter-protestors also worked with another GW student, Kellan Baker, who was encouraging people to donate to a gay and lesbian support group as a protest to the Westboro message. Baker held up a sign throughout the counter-protest showing a running amount of money that had been donated as a result of Westboro's presence in the District.
Initially, MacDonald said that he and Goldin had simply planned to come and observe Westboro's protest. Only after Goldin suggested the idea did they begin to organize the event and contact other groups to spread the word. Even with such little time to organize, MacDonald said that he thought his event was successful.
"I feel like we made our point," MacDonald said. "To a lot of people, this is the nation's Capital. To us, it's home, and it's not okay to have to face that here."
He added, "I think we got the point across to a lot more people than their group did."
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