A student-organized rally against hate drew several hundred people to Virginia Commonwealth University yesterday for a celebration of diversity and inclusiveness.
With signs that ranged from “God Hates Morons” to “God Loves All People,” the students were joined by VCU faculty and staff as well as representatives from a variety of faith-based and community organizations.
They were drawn to the Student Commons for a show of support for organizations that were picketed yesterday by an anti-Semitic and anti-gay church group from Kansas.
But the counter-protesters were cautioned by Virginia State University professor Renee Hill not to “hate the haters” because that will only allow the corrosion to spread.
“You may think that hating someone back is showing conviction,” she said. Instead, it lets “them pass off their terminal attitude to you.”
Jonathan Zur, president of Virginia Center for Inclusive Communities, asked that yesterday’s rally not be a singular event.
“What happens when we don’t have that common enemy?” he said, referring to picketers from Westboro Baptist Church who targeted Hermitage High School, the Virginia Holocaust Museum, the Jerusalem Connection and Weinstein JCC.
Jonathan Bridge, a sophomore from Baltimore, was among the students who organized the rally. VCU’s student groups strive for and thrive on diversity, said Bridge, president of Alpha Epsilon Pi, a Jewish fraternity.
The Rev. Jeanne Pupke of the First Unitarian Universalist Church called for ministers and rabbis to come forward. “We are standing on the side of love,” she said as 10 leaders of the faith community moved to the front of the crowd.
(Contact Karin Kapsidelis at (804) 649-6119 or kkapsidelis@timesdispatch.com.)
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