"The New York Times and Washington Post are both infested with homosexuals themselves. Just about every person down there is a homosexual or lesbian."
-- 1995
"The University of Negroes and Communists"
-- Reference to the University of North Carolina devised by Mr. Helms when he worked for Willis Smith's 1950 U.S. Senate campaign.
"Your tax dollars are being used to pay for grade-school classes that teach our children that CANNIBALISM, WIFE-SWAPPING and MURDER of infants and the elderly are acceptable behavior."
-- Fund raising mailer, 1996
"All Latins are volatile people. Hence, I was not surprised at the volatile reaction."
-- After Mexicans protested his visit in 1986
"Homosexuals are weak, morally sick wretches."
-- 1995 radio broadcast
"She's a damn lesbian. I am not going to put a lesbian in a position like that. If you want to call me a bigot, fine."
-- Explaining why he was opposing the appointment of a woman for a cabinet post.
"They should ask their parents if it would be all right for their son or daughter to marry a Negro."
-- In response to Duke University students holding a vigil after Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated, 1968
This bill attempts to make sure that President Clinton is not allowed to do by Executive Order what Congress has declined to enact in the past two congressional sessions namely, to treat homosexuals as a special class protected under various titles of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
-- introducing an anti-gay bill in January, 1999, quoted from Rhonda Smith, "Jesse Helms Introduces Anti-Gay Bill, " The Washington Blade, February 26, 1999
***
I will take this opportunity, as I've simply let the Helms record speak for itself, to say a positive comment about the late Senator - he and his office excelled at constituent services, with prompt, specific responses to every query regardless if whether you had his support on a particular issue. He showed up frequently to meet with and take care of his constituents, and he was rewarded by winning re-election time and again. Those acts do matter; sadly, that personal touch and responsiveness enabled him to continue fomenting bigotry in the name of the state of North Carolina that did not -- and certainly does not now -- reflect the beliefs of most residents of this state.
My condolences go out to the Helms family for their loss.
It should be noted that he campaigned openly for his granddaughter Jennifer Knox, who is now District Court Judge at State of North Carolina (in Wake County). Knox's sexual orientation came to light during that campaign. In 1993, when then-President Bill Clinton sought confirmation for an openly homosexual assistant secretary at the Department of Housing and Urban Development, Helms registered his disgust.
"I'm not going to put a lesbian in a position like that," he said in a newspaper interview at the time. "If you want to call me a bigot, fine." Helms' granddaughter, Jennifer Knox, is a lesbian and currently elected to public office, a judge in North Carolina -- elected as a Republican. He did not, however, apologize for any of his anti-gay positions. His one small acknowledgment (late, after how many perished of AIDS) came in the publication of his memoirs, "Here's Where I Stand":It had been my feeling that AIDS was a disease largely spread by reckless and voluntary sexual and drug-abusing behavior, and that it would probably be confined to those in high risk populations. I was wrong." ***
UPDATE (6:30 PM): I've been through a rollercoaster of emotions about Helms's death; the Helms who brought out celebratory emotion among some LGBTs and progressives today (who couldn't see that coming, given the record) built his career on fomenting prejudice and bigotry - but I just keep coming back to thoughts about what does it all mean in terms of today's political landscape? I thought about how blogging about it in some sort of a celebratory manner would have done little to make anyone think deeply about how his legacy would be analyzed by the MSM and the conservative movement.
What does conservatism mean today, as people look back at Helms? Forcing conservatives to publicly own the whole of Helms's record would be the best way to expose that, even today, a shocking number of those occupying the conservative elements of the GOP would not find much fault with what Helms stood for.
I would hope more progressives pressure the media and the Democrats at the national level -- particularly those who will go on the Sunday talk shows with conservatives -- to frame any discussion of Helms from the perspective of cultural history, civil rights and where both parties have evolved on his issues -- I think it will lay bare to the public which party is ready to move forward, not romanticize and thus reinforce bigotry of the past.
I am of course, well aware of the symbolic nature of his passing as "turning the page" in a painful book of our history. I'm not sure why I'm not feeling very celebratory, given the GOP I still see out there today. Not too many lessons learned.
I am also well aware of how Jesse Helms's reputation was used to denigrate all of the residents of North Carolina as backward, ignorant, racist and homophobic. Regional bigotry was allowed to flower against my state because of Helms -- and Blue State Dems who basically said "F*ck the South", as if there weren't deep blue pockets of voters working for change. Jesse's NC isn't the one I live in today. You wouldn't know that based on what many people who don't live here still think about the state and the region.
Anyway, it's obviously more complex than simply pissing on the grave of a hateful, dangerous and powerful politician who passed on.
UPDATE 2: Read my followup post, Conservatism in the wake of Jesse Helms.
Related:
* Jesse Helms memoirs: race matters |
