In this July 1, 2007 file photo, the Rev. Fred Phelps Sr. prepares to protest outside the Kansas Statehouse in Topeka, Kan. Phelps, the founder of the Kansas church known for anti-gay protests and pickets at military funerals, died late Wednesday, March 19, 2014, his family said. He was 84. (AP Photo/Orlin Wagner, File) Fred Phelps was an inspirational civil rights crusader before he gained worldwide notoriety for a phase so hateful and extreme"God hate fags"it tested the limits of the First Amendment. Phelps, 84, died late Wednesday. His evil crusade somehow made us better. As a leading civil rights lawyer, Phelps took on "the Jim Crow establishment" in Topeka, Kan., a city forced to desegregate schools by the Supreme Court's landmark decision in Brown v. Board of Education. I interviewed a deputy district attorney in Topeka who was fired for being black by his newly elected boss. He wept, thanking Phelps for rectifying the matter. Phelps took cases t...