> People are on this thread casually debating whether this joke "went to far" or not, while the people who this joke was about continue to face constant ridicule, teasing, bullying, discrimination, and assault.

I don't see how banning joking about them will help them, all this will achieve is to radicalize moderates.

> Would it have been OK to make a joke about 9/11 victims while they were still digging people out of the wreckage? What if that joke was light-hearted, or the comedian was just making fun of people who tell those jokes?

Sure, why not, nobody force you to listen/watch it. If it has audience then it's OK. Society nowadays wanna ban everything because of crybabies who can't handle jokes. But yeah, to play it safe let's not even acknowledge existence of these people, so they can't complain and they can be happy.