The Westboro Baptist Church was taken to court by the father of Lance Cpl Matthew Snyder, a marine who died serving in Iraq in March 2006. Fred Phelps and the rest of his sick little band, as you probably know, gave up picketing the funerals of homosexuals and started picketing the funerals of soldiers, claiming that their deaths were 'God's punishment' for the US not hating homosexuals.
Yeah, righty-o there, Freddie.
Anyway, Lance Cpl Matthew Snyder's father, Albert, sued the living fuck out of them. In the end, the jury ordered them to pay $10.9m in damages. $2.9 of that was compensatory (sounds awful steep to me...), and an additional $8m for invasion of privacy and for causing emotional distress. Albert Snyder's attorney, Craig Trebilcock, had urged jurors to agree an amount "that says 'Don't do this' in Maryland again. Do not bring your circus of hate to Maryland again". Defense attorney Jonathan Katz's argument that the $2.9m in compensatory damages already far exceeded the defendants' net worth and would be enough to "bankrupt them and financially destroy them" was ignored. Good.
Yes, you know damn well they will appeal this, and they seem to think they'll get it overturned with no problem (which means they probably have a judge in their pocket), but hopefully, this is just the first blow that shall be followed by more. Enough with this hatred, especially for such a dumb and unconnected reason.
Fred, at the risk of sounding hateful myself, the world is going to have a huge fuckin' party when your sorry ass goes straight to the Hell you fear so much. Hell, I'll lead the celebratory deviant sex party.