Student Government Association leaders and a Western human rights group joined about 50 others to protest the Ku Klux Klan at a rally Saturday in Bowling Green.

Two SGA officers, an SGA congress member, and 25 members of Celebrate Activisim Now, joined other anti-Klan protesters at the Warren County Justice Center, site of the Klan rally. Most were Western students.

They heckled and swapped insults with 15 Klan members. Protesters also knelt and prayed for racial, ethnic and religious tolerance as Klan members, four of them women, shouted “White Power” over loud speakers.

“The trash that they’re speaking right beside our city government is absolutely ridiculous,” said Brandon Copeland, SGA Vice President of Administration.

“We’re out here defending diversity, defending multiculturalism, defending liberty and freedom and tolerance,” Copeland said.

SGA Judicial Council Justice Dana Lockhart also protested.

“I’m glad that Western students are standing up for diversity, but I think when we all got down and prayed, it was perhaps the best moment of protest that I saw today,” Lockhart said.

SGA Representative April Lash joined the anti-Klan contingent at the Justice Center.

On the other side, 13 people showed up to support the KKK.

Each side was seperated from the other by yellow police tape, orange plastic fence and dozens of police officers and sherriff’s deputies.