Westboro Denounced in New Jersey

The Westboro Baptist Church launched its hate tour of New Jersey Wednesday morning, beginning with pickets outside New Brunswick High School and a chapter of Hillel, a campus Jewish group, at Rutgers University.

Six members of the Westboro Baptist Chruch were outnumbered by more than 200 Rutgers students and other participants around 8 a.m., according to the Newark-based Star-Ledger. The counterprotesters rallied for tolerance.

News about the Westboro visit spread rapidly in preceding days over Facebook, allowing organizers of the counterprotest to gather a large crowd.

The Westboro picketers left Rutgers around 8:40 a.m., according to the Star-Ledger. The Topeka, Kan.-based group plans a total of 12 stops in the Garden State.