I've known about the Phelps family for years. Not the most pleasant knowledge, to be fair. Really, the WBC is not "anti-gay" so much as "anti-humanity". Homosexuality received a huge amount of their hate, but it ran so much deeper than that -- down to a hatred of everyone who did not conform to their bizarre brand of Christianity. As is hinted at in the news article cited earlier, this ran so deep that even the Phelps family became divided, as those who turned their back on the WBC would be ignored, shunned, treated as Black Sheep etc.
In some sense the WBC could be thought of as "Jehovah's Witnesses to the max"... it is, anyway, about far, far more than their anti-LGBT stance that catapaulted them into the news. Their pickets of military funerals, even the funerals of children who were victims of gun crime, was probably far more despicable than the tiresome "God hates fags" slogan in their banners.
Let him die ignored and uncared for, disappearing silently out of this world into the nothingness that awaits him. It would be a far, far more appropriate response than any picketing. Taking this event and turning it into some sort of internal argument about "you don't say this about Africa" seems to miss the point spectacularly.
Phelps' preaching was all about hate, and division, and anger. Meeting it with unity and respect is the response we should be aiming for.