Westboro Baptist Church neglects Pitt because of a little rain
Students are annoyed they didn’t get to protest with pride
The Westboro Baptist Church posted a flier with a press release that showed plans for the church to picket outside of the Cathedral of Learning from 2:35pm until 3:05pm on October 5, 2017. While the church was active in Pittsburgh and picketed at Carnegie Mellon University, they never showed their faces at Pitt.
The Westboro Baptist Church is a group of hyper-calvinists from Topeka, Kansas. They act almost like a cult in a sense that they believe that those who are not members of their church with their same beliefs will be damned to hell.
They are strongly against homosexuality, the United States of America (yes, this is correct), soldiers, and just about any religion that is not their own. They frequently picket, or protest, funerals of soldiers, random high schools, presidential inaugurations, and they even picketed funerals of those who lost their lives in the Pulse mass-shooting that occurred in Orlando in June of 2016.
Many students were disappointed by the fact that the WBC "ditched" them, denying them the opportunity to give them pieces of their minds, but they still unified with signs and attire countering the church's hate.
Some Pitt students crafted a quick sign to show their support for the gay community while also tooting their own horn
Leah Bernstein, University of Pittsburgh
Students from Carlow University, along with residents of Pittsburgh also braved the stormy conditions to join Pitt students on the corner of Forbes and Bigelow to await the supposed arrival of the church members.
An activist stands next to a man offering prayers outside the Cathedral of Learning
"I wish I looked more gay." – Alaina Muller, 18
Megan Hiser poses in a dino-suit featuring a nice rainbow addition.
Even when the hate doesn't show up, Pitt students are clearly capable of showing love and compassion while fighting against the forces in the world that wish to repress who people are free to be.