Don't want to be like him

My posts this evening were about catching up on news earlier in the week. But I didn't check today's news. That would have made one of today's posts a bit more complete. And that news is:

Fred Phelps, of Westboro Baptist Church, has died. He was 84.

The family is annoyed with the way the world has responded to the news earlier this week that Phelps was in hospice, that we were all salivating over every potential crumb about in-fighting and power struggles.

Timothy Kincaid of Box Turtle Bulletin summarizes Phelps' legacy:

As his life came to a close, his sole redeeming quality might be that he had, inadvertently, galvanized moderate people of faith into countering his message and silenced many who might have expressed similar views in a much less strident fashion. And perhaps his legal defense of his right to cause offense has helped protect the rights to free speech for other dissident voices.

So, yeah, he helped improve the lives of gays, not by what he said (which was difficult to listen to) but by others not wanting to be as bad as he was.