Thread:Comments:Internet security firm to donate revenue to charity after Anonymous protest of Westboro Baptist Church/Does no one see that WBC is the good guy in this story?/reply (4)

Thank you for conversing. You could not have read Snyder v. Phelps (2011) in the ten minutes that elapsed between my post and your reply. In the U.S., there is no hate speech exception to the First Amendment; hate speech is fully protected by federal law, which trumps state law. All states must conform to Snyder v. Phelps (2011), which was decided in favor of the general method of speech used by WBC.

AFAIK, it is WBC's method, not their viewpoint, that is controversial. Their viewpoint, although unpopular and disagreeable to many, is right out of the Bible and is arguably clearly not hate speech. It is their willingness to inflict emotional pain on vulnerable people in mourning that is, rightly, controversial. In terms of law, this is a controversy over nuisance.

Whether WBC has a moral right to inflict such pain is debatable. But whether they have a legal right to do so is no longer reasonably debatable, because the issue has been decided by the Court.