I was paid to write a paper on it and before that I was kind of disappointed that they lost. But it turns out that they stuck to all the rules (zoning, didn't interrupt the funeral) and they were only getting sued for causing emotional distress. So now it's my go-to example for the principle overriding the individuals since even for those people who agree with the WBC, there's no way that they are going to like them over a father whose son was killed overseas.

Considering how many people I piss off on the internet, I am quite happy that I can't get sued for it.

The original case that established this was Falwell v. Hustler - and neither one of those parties is exactly sympathetic (that was when Hustler ran a fake liquor ad with Jerry Falwell as the spokesman saying how great it was when he first tried it because he managed to have sex with his mother - I thought it was funny, but only because I really never liked Falwell)