Calling American University “pervert-run” in a Jan. 5 press release, the Kansas-based extremist group also targeted the Islamic Center of D.C. and the Kennedy Center Memorial of Richard Holbrooke, the former U.S. Special Envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan who passed away in December.

Four Westboro members stood on American’s campus holding signs discriminating against gays and reading “Thank God for Crippled Soldiers.”

The counter-demonstration, dubbed the Rally to Reaffirm Sanity and held across the street by AU Student Activities, yielded between 700 and 1,200 students, according to unofficial statistics reported in The Eagle, American University’s online student newspaper.

Katherine Scholle (COL ’11), who was in Tucson, Ariz. during the shooting, attended with a group of six other Georgetown students looking to show support for the victims of last week’s shooting in Tucson. Scholle and the rest of her group carried signs in support of the American rally, reading “God Hates Hate,” “Hate is Not a Christian Value,” and “God Loves Everyone — Including Bigots and Hatemongers!”

“I wanted to show that Georgetown cares too,” Scholle said. “We wanted to make sure someone was here.” American’s administration asked students at the beginning of the rally not to engage with Westboro members and to make the peaceful counter-protest a symbol of on-campus tolerance.

The rally was officially endorsed by several on-campus organizations, including AU Vets, the United Methodist Student Association, the American University Hillel and Queers and Allies, American’s premierLGBT student group.

Westboro Baptist Church is a Christian group known for picketing at the funerals of American soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan and funerals of homosexuals who have been victims of hate crimes. Most recently, the group announced its plans to picket the funerals of the six people killed in last Saturday’s shooting at a Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) event in Tucson because Giffords passed laws banning pickets like those of the WBC.

Correction: The original version of this article stated that Katherine Scholle is a Tucson resident, however, she was just visiting during the shooting.