Fred Phelps, the one-time leader of the infamous "GOD HATES FAGS" church, is on his deathbed in Kansas. Hopefully, you can carry on with your day having learned of this terrible news.

Phelps' son Nathan, who left the church in 1980 and now lives in Canada working on behalf of LGBT rights, posted on Facebook late last night that his father is dying in a hospice in Topeka.

I've learned that my father, Fred Phelps, Sr., pastor of the "God Hates Fags" Westboro Baptist Church, was ex-communicated from the "church" back in August of 2013. He is now on the edge of death at Midland Hospice house in Topeka, Kansas. I'm not sure how I feel about this. Terribly ironic that his devotion to his god ends this way. Destroyed by the monster he made. I feel sad for all the hurt he's caused so many. I feel sad for those who will lose the grandfather and father they loved. And I'm bitterly angry that my family is blocking the family members who left from seeing him, and saying their good-byes.

The legacy Phelps will leave is of having turned his religion into a sideshow, and of having made the notion of the protest a farce. We may never know the extent to which Phelps realized that his church moved the "cause" backwards, or whether he even gave a shit.

But we know that above all the Westboro Baptist Church loved attention, and now its ex-leader will die quietly as the world spins uninterrupted.

[image of Fred Phelps via AP]