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Originally Posted by Cimarron29414
KirStang and Alito said it far better than me. Originally, it seems the case was, "Did the actions of the WBC rise from simple protest to the level of IIED?" Unfortunately, along the path of this case, someone (the defense attorneys) decided this was some symbolic case for free speech and assembly and the gullible media ran with it, for fear that a plantiff's verdict would hurt their ability to report.
If all WBC had done was show up at the funeral, on public land, and protested - I would say it was protected. However, you are not protesting when you create Facebook pages implying their son was gay and that God killed him because of it. They launched a multi-pronged campaign calling out this exact soldier. It is the totality of their actions which rises to IIED, in my opinion.
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This soldier is hardly the first person to be mentioned by WBC by name. I think you could argue that their facebook page, while pretty fucked up, is the expression of a political opinion. It is political and not personal because they have pretty consistently spread the same message regardless of the people involved- just because it is directed at a single person doesn't make it personal. They think that god kills soldiers because of teh gays, that is a political statement.