The attorney for the church is the daughter of the nut case pastor.
The public v. private nature is THE argument for the church as the ruling in the Jerry Fallwell v. Hustler case is what they are hanging their entire argument on.
How they can claim the father of the soldier is a public figure is absurd. That is the entire case. The father IS NOT a public figure and is a private citizen.
The jury verdict must stand.
Actually what they're arguing if you read it closely is that Hustler should be expanded to private individuals, or conversely that the definition of public figure should be changed to include anyone who has personal information available publicly - in this case, through the deceased's obituary. Why they dropped the sufficient evidence objection and it had to be raised on amicus is beyond me, that's the key to the entire case. The WBC people were never suspected to be all that bright though.
ETA: On the other hand, the Snyders are arguing they were a captive audience at the funeral, when they testified they never even knew the WBC was there during the funeral. Both sides could have used better attorneys on this, the arguments dance around the real issues and ignore the facts - on both sides.
Of course they are because without the "expansion" they have no argument. However, they argued yesterday that TV interviews the father gave "expanded" the father to a piblic figure from a private one de facto.
Meh, they're idiots. But Petitioner's attorneys aren't much better. They're going to have one hell of a time trying to coax the issues out of the WBC reject and the facts out of the Petitioners.