...I suppose that's a good thing. Although, to be fair, almost nobody thought of him as anything but a hateful bigot so it's not like he was influencing anything for bad. Even the right wing hated him - though that's probably only because he hated Jews - which is one of the many bad thing about the right wing (that they only hated Phelps for hating Jews (publicly, a lot of the religious right privately hates Jews)). Falwell said almost the same thing about 9/11 except he left Jews out of it and the right wing still loved him until he kicked it - Bush even had him over for coffee half a dozen times.
Having been brainwashed in the "Jesus Camp" methods by the religious right in youth, I feel sorry for the children who were raised in that church as they will have to figure out slowly how wrong they are and how much they are stigmatized by most of society. I feel sorry for the guy's grandchildren.
To be fair to my values as an advocate of free speech, they didn't really do anything other than be really offensive, so, I will give the mean, spiteful, deplorable, bigot credit for pushing for free speech rights.
May we all live in a world with less hate in the future. But one where we can still speak freely.