You nailed it. As vile as the WBC is, this is a huge victory for the right, especially when combating Islam. What the SCOTUS did here was basically say there was no such thing as hate speech.
Was not the whole issue whether or not the actions of the Westboro Church constituted an intentional infliction of emotional distress, a concept I heard one legal expert say goes back to colonial days?
I really don't understand how this has anything to do with the first admendment. As another poster pointed out, the verbal attack was directed not at a group or some political concept or practice but directly at the dead man's parents. The "fighting words" doctrine has limited free speech for decades. Were these not words "those which by their very utterance inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace?"
It seems to me that Synder's better course would have been to get out of his limo and kicked the ass of every one of the protesters right on the spot. He would have gotten a hell of a lot more pleasure out of the process than the court has given him, without much additional cost in money than he now owes.
Which, in the face of the incredible restrictions currently in place in Canada, for example, is a GOOD thing.