Last week, Omar Mateen went into Pulse, a gay night club in Orlando and killed 50 people, making it one biggest massacures on LGBT people in the west since the Holocaust. As well as vigils in London, Paris and Berlin, during a recent funeral for Christopher Leinonen, 32, who was killed at the Pulse night club in Orlando last week, a group of staff from the Orlando Shakespeare Theatre displayed a selfless act of kindness and compassion to those attending.
The theatre staff and volunteers built ‘Angel Wings’ to block out members of the Westboro Bapist Church, who were protesting at the funeral. The wings were built in their costume shop with the help of donations.
The Westboro Church is an anti-gay organisation with around 40 members, and is widely known for attending funerals fueled with hate-speeches and chants. This time, however, they were greeted and blocked out by around 200 counter-protesters. The angel wings divided the two, creating a safe place for the funeral attenders to mourn in peace.
A supporter, Suzanna Draper told the BBC that 'I think our presence here is just to show support for the families of the victim and we want to make sure that we’re an ally.’ While the world may still be in a state of shock from last week's distressing events, there is some comfort in knowing that the world came together to unite and provide support.
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.