Fred Phelps’ Westboro Baptist Church protested at Jerry Falwell’s funeral, accusing the evangelist of being in cahoots with gays. Short of Dick Cheney and Muqtada al-Sadr doing the jitterbug, I can’t think of a more surreal scene.

If the wildly anti-gay Phelps hates Falwell, does this mean I should think better of Jerry than I have? Is there reason to view Falwell as something other than an enemy of gay people?

On its Web site, Phelps’ outfit announced its intention to appear at the funeral “of the corpulent false prophet Jerry Falwell, who spent his entire life prophesying lies and false doctrines like ‘God loves everyone.’”

In addition to this unpardonable sin, “Falwell warmly praised Christ-rejecting Jews, pedophile-condoning Catholics,” and so on. Only a psychiatrist could adequately explain Phelps. To me, he’s such a fanatic I wouldn’t trust his opinion on socks.

More credible is Soulforce cofounder Mel White, who before coming to terms with his gayness ghostwrote Falwell’s autobiography. He told The Advocate that the reverend was a terrific father, husband and pastor, and “had a private persona that was really quite amiable.”

I can believe all that. Just because Falwell was, as White said, “the face of homophobia,” doesn’t mean he kicked dogs. Chances are he just lectured them on the evils of same-mutt attraction.

White pointed to Falwell’s willingness to hold an anti-violence summit with him in 1999. After the event, however, Falwell refused to see White again, owing, White suggested, to all the heat he took from his fundamentalist associates and donors.

I’m sure it’s difficult to do the right thing when you have an empire to finance.

In the ’60 Falwell famously spoke of the “civil wrongs movement.” But he performed a turnaround on black civil rights, and White kept hoping for the same pirouette when it came to gays.

Falwell undeniably had a key place in history. Professor Susan Friend Harding, who studied him and his movement, told CNN.com that “Jerry Falwell led fundamentalism out of political and cultural exile,” most notably as the founder of Moral Majority. In ending this separatism and getting churches actively involved in politics, he changed America.

And he undeniably accomplished a lot of that on our backs. In 1977, he supported Anita Bryant’s anti-gay crusade, telling a crowd “gay folks would just as soon kill you as look at you.” During the early AIDS years, he was the model of Christian love when he said, “AIDS is not just God’s punishment for homosexuals, it is God’s punishment for the society that tolerates homosexuals.”

Who could forget his warning that Tinky Winky, the purple Teletubbie, was gay and a threat to children? Or his declaration following Sept. 11 that gays and our fellow travelers were to blame?

Which brings me to something I know for certain about Jerry Falwell: As a humor writer, I’m going to miss that man. His frequent outlandish statements gave new meaning to the journalistic term “reliable source.”

Two years ago, Falwell completely confused me because he said something… nice. He told MSNBC, “Civil rights for all Americans, black, white, red, yellow, the rich, poor, young, old, gay, straight, et cetera, is not a liberal or conservative value. It’s an American value that I would think that we pretty much all agree on.”

Was he trying to get right with God as his judgment day neared? Was he displaying that amiability Mel White mentioned? Or did he see his clout waning and wanted to sting powerbrokers on the right?

His power had indeed waned; no major White House figure or any of the Republican presidential candidates attended Falwell’s funeral. I bet some gays did attend – to assure themselves “the face of homophobia” was really gone.