Westboro Baptist Church gets smacked

[Bun-Bun]

A jury of your peers deciding against you in a civil suit is not a law-making body. Whoops!

I'd say that's splitting the hair too fine. A court is a governmental body; its decisions, derived from a judge or a jury are regardless enforced by the government. Civil decisions don't get to sidestep the Constitution.

I think it's not a First Amendment issue because there are a vast number of other venues this gang of cretins may spew bile in. The specific timing and choice of audience caused injury, and the jury went along with that concept. It disturbs me that people (to use the term loosely) are being punished for speech we find reprehensible because there is a slippery slope argument to be made; we cannot outlaw or unduly restrict speech we don't like or we lose the heart of the First Amendment. On the other hand, it is recognized that some speech can cause harm. I prefer the line to be drawn in a fashion most generous to the speaker, but there is a line.