The students from the university were protecting the students from protesters.
Students attended a back to school pride night in Utah.
Protesters came to disrupt the event but the angel costumes helped block out their signs.
The students dressed as angels were protecting the students from the protesters at the back to school pride night.
The Salt Lake City Tribune reported that the Raynbow Collective put on an event at a park ahead of school. The anti-gay protesters yelled out "pedophile" and "groomer" at the students.
The man told the group that they were going against God. Some people wore signs with slurs.
The people came out to have fun. A group of people dressed as angels formed a barrier between them and the protesters.
White sheets were fitted over the pipes to make them look like angel wings. When the angels stood between the protesters and the LGBT students, their wings, measuring up to about three feet above their shoulders, blocked the signs and posters from the anti-LGBT group.
"I want our community to feel like they can be themselves and know we have their backs, and that's why I'm doing this," Wong said.
Police told the organizers that a large crowd of protesters would show up as well.
Maddison Tenney, founder of the Raynbow Collective, came up with the idea of creating angel costumes to protect the people at the event.
The costumes and practice dates back to 1999, when a group of people wore angel apparel to honor Matthew Shepard, a gay University of Wyoming student who had been beaten and tortured. Shepard passed away six days after the attack. Anti-LGBTQ protesters have been blocked by people in angel costumes since then.
The students joined the people in angel costumes to fill in any gaps that were created by the protesters. The Tribune reported that about 100 protesters were in attendance.
Tenney told the crowd that there were more people with them than against them.
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