Terrorist act?

I had not heard of the Westboro Baptist Church before today - and I think I preferred it that way. Numerous stories about this religious group of approximately 150 members (80% of them related) populated the US press today after they had threatened to picket the funerals of the 5 Amish school girls killed earlier this week by "milkman turned madman" (so dubbed by ABC News Nightline). The Westboros make it a practice to picket - 6 per day, 15 on Sunday - and have started picketing funerals of soldiers killed in Iraq. As far as I can tell from the reports I've read (and I absolutely refused to go to their website), their message is that everyone but them is evil - and includes that "God hates America" (as they have reportedly paraded on the streets of Baghdad before the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime); and that "God hates fags". When bad things happen - it's God's will at work - punishing all and sundry (except them) for moral turpitude.
The main gist of today's media was that the Westboros had agreed not to picket the Amish funerals in exchange for airtime on national media. As one source said that it seemed an awful lot like negotating with terrorists!
I'm not sure if it is encouraging or not that there are groups out there - eg the Vietnam Veterans Motorcycle Club in this instance - who were prepared to shield the Amish (and the world generally) from the Westboros - especially if the moves by various legislatures throughout the States, eg Indiana, to make it a felony to protest within 500 ft of a funeral are not successful. Somehow 500 ft doesn't seem like nearly far enough.