Crowds of Vassar students gather to counter-protest the Westboro picket. (Shannon Gayle Smith)

On February 28, four members of Westboro picketed Vassar College, which the church had nicknamed the “Ivy League Whorehouse” due to its reputation as a liberal institution that has been consistently accepting of individuals who do not identify within traditional categories of gender or sexuality.

Westboro has made headlines for protesting at military funerals, claiming that God kills American soldiers because U.S. law and society have accepted homosexuality and protect gay rights. The church also picketed at the funerals of victims of the Sandy Hook shooting, claiming that “God sent the shooter.”  

When the church announced its plans to picket Vassar, however, counter-protests and fundraisers in support of social justice and tolerance were organized. A Vassar alum started an online fundraiser for the Trevor Project, an LGBTQ support and crisis intervention group. The goal was to raise $4500, or $100 for every minute that the WBC planned to picket, but the fund has raised over $100,000 since its inception. Do Something VC, a diversity awareness group “committed to equality, acceptance, and social justice,” was created the day after the WBC updated its picket schedule. It has continued raising money for several institutions, even after the protest.

The physical counter-protest was also vastly successful. On the day of the picket, Vassar students, faculty and staff came out in support of their school’s policy of tolerance and inclusion and of the students who were the target of Westboro’s hate. Many carried signs in support of LGBTQ rights and diversity. The WBC picket dwarfed in comparison to the crowd that rallied.

Vassar’s commitment to LGBTQ support and combating hate speech, evidenced by both the fundraising and the counter-protest, has been phenomenal and deserves imitation by universities across the country. Its students’ successful efforts are a milestone for the rise against entrenched, archaic and ignorant beliefs and to make college campuses safe, accepting environments for diversity.

Westboro, no one is listening to you. Even your legitimacy as a religious institution is doubted, and many popular voices view you as a hate group or a domestic terrorist organization. The amount of support that counter-protests to your agenda draw makes your mission completely counterintuitive. Your pickets, which arouse in the public a general sense of criticism and disgust, have rallied more support for the very causes you deem blasphemous than they would have garnered had you not directed attention and sympathy toward them. 

So, go on with your message of hate. Because as your performance at Vassar has shown, love and acceptance will always overcome it. 

Find out more about Westboro Baptist Church's picket of Vassar College here.

Reach Contributor Ashley Yang here.