Albert Snyder of York, Pa., sued the Westboro Baptist Church for unspecified damages after members demonstrated at the March 2006 funeral of his son, Lance Cpl. Matthew Snyder, a Marine who was killed in Iraq.

The jury first awarded $2.9 million in compensatory damages. It returned in the afternoon with its decision to award $6 million in punitive damages for invasion of privacy and $2 million for causing emotional distress.

Snyder's attorney, Craig Trebilcock, had urged jurors to determine an amount "that says don't do this in Maryland again. Do not bring your circus of hate to Maryland again."

The church members testified they are following their religious beliefs by spreading the message that soldiers are dying because the nation is too tolerant of homosexuality.

Their attorneys maintained in closing arguments Tuesday that the burial was a public event and that even abhorrent points of view are protected by the First Amendment, which guarantees freedom of speech and religion.

The mystery to me is how the WBC has been able to get away with flagrant hate speech without ever being charged under our hate crime laws. The Snyders' was a civil suit, yet there is nothing ambiguous, legally or otherwise, about carrying signs with epithets like "faggot" slurring entire groups of people. As if they wanted to openly defy the laws, they even put the word "hate" prominently on their signs. To drive the point home, they picketed outside the courthouse while the trial was going on, carrying signs that said "God Is Your Enemy" and chanting "God Hates America".

The only explanation I can come up with is that local police depts want to avoid getting involved with a so-called "religious freedom" issue by arresting - or at least citing - a fundamentalist Xtian church for hate speech. I admit it's a can of worms politically but there's nothing in any state's hate crime legislation that exempts religious groups. "Hate speech is a crime except when fundamentalist Xtians do it" is not a sentence you will find in any law anywhere.

Presumably the WBC will appeal the decision on "religious freedom" grounds, and given the loading of district and appeals court benches with right-wing Republicans friendly to the fundies, there's no guarantee an excuse won't be found to overturn the verdict.

Still, it's hard to see this as anything other than a victory for tolerance and the protection of the rights of the families of soldiers killed in service to their country to mourn in peace.