Here's a photo from Coretta Scott King's funeral:

CAPTION: A dozen members of the anti-gay Westboro Baptist Church from Kansas protested at Coretta Scott King’s funeral on Feb. 7, saying her advocacy for gay rights meant she was doomed to hell. (Photo by Dyana Bagby)

FrontPageMag.com has an essay -- The "God Hates Fags" Left -- about Fred Phelps, the career bigot behind the above signs. Contrary to the popular assumption that he has to be an official member of the "ascendant Republican theocracy," Phelps actually has a long career as a Democratic activist and plain old crook.

several states are now considering legislation banning demonstrations at funerals. He is their main and probably only target.

He is Pastor Fred Phelps of the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas. And his "God Hates Fags" theme has earned him an unending stream of media attention over the last 15 years.

Media have commonly described Phelps as a "Baptist pastor" and "anti-gay activist," with the implication that he was simply a more aggressive component of the Religious Right. Nation magazine included Phelps in a profile about the "The Radical Right After 9/11."

Phelps celebrated the 9/11 attacks and the more recent al-Qaeda strikes in London as the just recompense of Western decadence. He supported Saddam Hussein and has been appreciative to Fidel Castro. Phelps is probably more appropriately described in psychiatric than political terms. But his political roots are in the Democratic Party, having run for office in Kansas five times, and actively supported Al Gore in 1988 and 1992 before turning against him.

More careful media coverage acknowledges that Phelps’ ostensibly Baptist church is "unaffiliated" and comprised of only his family members, whose compound of houses is assembled around the church and its swimming pool used for baptisms.

Phelps, now age 76, has demonstrated outside the Bush Ranch in Crawford, Texas. He has demonstrated against conservative religious activists James Dobson, Jerry Falwell, and Pat Robertson. He has demonstrated against the Southern Baptist Convention. His targets span the full political and theological spectrum. Anyone who does not share his insistence that God reserves a special hatred for homosexuals is worthy of the Phelps treatment.

Perhaps I lived in Berkeley too long, but I spotted this guy as an agent provocateur long ago, and frankly, at this point he's so tired that he'd be little more than a target for ridicule were it not for the fact that he harrasses grief-stricken people when they're most vulnerable, and there's nothing funny about that.

I'm as much of a free speech champion as anyone, but I have no problem with time, place and manner restrictions, especially at funerals.

Cockroaches scurry away from the light, so I think the more information is made public about Phelps, the better.

Too many people take him seriously.

There's only one thing which still puzzles me about Phelps, and that's whether he's he a mere demagogue or whether he actually believes the nonsense he spouts. Not all agents provocateur are demagogues, and while I'd find it reassuring to discover that Phelps was taking money from GLAAD or some other group under the table, it is theoretically possible that he's a true believer. I doubt it, though.

(I happen to think true believers are more dangerous than demagogues, but that's another topic.)