Standing United in the Face of Hate

An anti-Jewish and anti-Gay group, the Westboro Baptist Church (WBC), plans to stage a demonstration outside the Marcus Hillel Center at Emory in early May to bring their message of hate to our community. While staging a counter-demonstration with our many friends and allies on campus may very well be a powerful message of unity, after consulting with our student and campus leadership, we have decided such an action would bring WBC more attention and credibility than they deserve.

Rather, let us show the world that our Emory community is united in defending against defamation of any group based on religion, ethnicity, or sexual orientation through a “virtual demonstration.”

We invite everyone in the Emory community – on-campus and off-campus, Jewish and non-Jewish – to stand united in a “virtual demonstration” by signing your name to the EMORY UNITED pledge statement and/or by making a pledge of a dollar or more to Hillel at Emory for every minute that the protesters stand outside Hillel hurling their terrible epithets and holding signs that will likely read "God Hates Fags" and "Jews Stole the Land." (Their itinerary shows that they plan to be here for 30 minutes.)

Click here to make your contribution. And sign the pledge statement here.

We encourage everyone who may be inclined to show up to stage a counter-demonstration to instead join this ongoing “virtual demonstration” – and please not confront the WBC demonstrators.