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However, this $11 million judgment bothers me. What exactly did the church do to cause $11 million of damages? They are disgusting slugs, but when did the 1st Amendment start prohibiting speech we don’t agree with?

You have a Constitutional right to your political opinions. You can voice your opinions in public until your throat is raw.

However, if you disrupt the funeral of one of my family members to communicate to his grieving family that he deserved to die, I will do whatever I legally can to make your life a living Hell until the day you die.

What Phelps did is not protected free speech. It comes under the category of Fighting Words.

Thank you, Polybius. I wasn’t aware of the “Fighting Words” legal definition. From your link:

Fighting Words: “those which by their very utterance inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace. It has been well observed that such utterances are no essential part of any exposition of ideas, and are of such slight social value as a step to truth that any benefit that may be derived from them is clearly outweighed by the social interest in order and morality.”

Thanks again.