Some of North Carolina’s legislators wanted to honor the late U.S. Sen. Jesse Helms, one of this nation’s greatest anti-gay and racist bigots, by passing an honorary resolution. But then Sen. Julia Boseman, the state’s only openly gay legislator, was all OH HELL NO! The resolution — which reads “The General Assembly of North Carolina expresses its appreciation for the life and public service of Jesse Alexander Helms, Jr., and honors his memory” — passed the Senate 41-1 and the House 98-0. [Q Notes]
dm73
ugh….bronze statutes for presidents who ignored the AIDS Epidemic and now this nonsense…
dm73
I mean statues…
InExile
Yes, a wonderful man. We can thank him for the BAN on HIV positive travelers to the USA, he wrote it! The ultimate enemy to the LGBT community, his #1 priority was to target the gay community. North Carolina should be ashamed to honor such a homophobic bigot with a legacy of hate.
Nick
Yes, as a former police officer, police chief, UN Peacekeeper, and trainer of police in Iraq–who just happens to be a gay man, who’s been out at work for almost all his carreer, who has only ever wanted to just get along in his life unencumbered and to do the best job he could, and who happened to have grow up in Virginia five miles from NC[pause for breath]–I can say that Jesse Helms was always a terrible blight and an embarrassment to every decent member of the human race. He caused more pain to more innocent people than almost anyone in the straight world can imagine. I hope if there’s an afterlife, he will be made to come to terms with what he has done. Even beyond the issue of being so proudly intransigent as an enemy of basic human rights and human decency, he was for four decades the biggest enabler and protector of Big Tobacco, so one could speculate not only many hate crimes against gays that he inspired in his career, but also how many people who probably died miserable deaths from cigarette smoking because Jesse took every opportunity to defend the peddlers of a highly addictive poison.
Michael @ LeonardMatlovich.com
Younger readers might not remember what a Racist, Sexist, Homohating, Transhating, Fascistic, Genocidal Demagogue Helms was. He fought against anything that might help end, functionally or symbolically, the second class citizenship of blacks, from the Voting Rights Act to MLK’s birthday holiday.
In addition to leading the opposition to Clinton’s appointment of “damn lesbian” Roberta Achtenberg to HUD [the one forgotten in Obama’s “Pride” proclamation] with “I’m not going to put a lesbian in a position like that. If you want to call me a bigot, fine,” fought against any kind of funding related to AIDS. Next to Reagan, there is probably no American more responsible for the deaths of countless gays and others. Helms: “There is not one single case of AIDS in this country that cannot be traced in origin to sodomy.” He even refused to speak to Ryan White’s mother when she visited the Capitol to lobby for the funding bill named after her late son. Helms was also author of the law that still bars HIV+ visitors/emigres to the US. And I don’t give a flying fuck that Bono finally convinced him to support AIDS funding IN AFRICA.
On a lighter note, this occasion is a good one to remind/inform of the time a group of AIDS/gay activists literally put a giant condom on the heinous Helms’ house, paid for in part by money given to them by David Geffen. One of them was “POZ” founder Sean Strub who’s first claim to fame was seducing Tennessee Williams into signing the first fundraising letter for HRCF.
Extra historical footnotes: In his younger, closeted, right wing Republican days, “Tales of the City” troubadour Armistead Maupin was a TV reporter for Helms’ North Carolina TV station. He learned that Helms’ homohating trumped even his hatred of blacks and “liberal” Democrats. Helms particularly hated President Johnson’s Secty of State Dean Rusk, even more after Rusk’s daughter announced she was marrying a black man.
When Maupin interviewed the Imperial Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan about it, the Wiz asked, “What else could you expect from [the daughter of] a man who is a practicing homosexual?”
Racing [no pun intended] back to the station to tell his boss, Helms wouldn’t let him use the quote ripe at once with race and gay baiting because, Helms declared, “That’s the worst thing you can say about anybody.” Whatever Rusk actually was in that regard, there’s film of him mocking a protest by gays outside a meeting he’s in led by Frank Kameny and Barbara Gittings.
CONDOM VIDEO:
youtube.com/watch?v=bngtgTwvKcE
“POZ” account:
blogs.poz.com/peter/archives/2008/07/in_memory_of_je.html
[img]http://blog.wfmu.org/freeform/images/helmsaction1.jpg[/img]
Michael @ LeonardMatlovich.com
Younger readers might not remember what a Racist, Sexist, Homohating, Transhating, Fascistic, Genocidal Demagogue Helms was. He fought against anything that might help end, functionally or symbolically, the second class citizenship of blacks, from the Voting Rights Act to MLK’s birthday holiday.
In addition to leading the opposition to Clinton’s appointment of “damn lesbian” Roberta Achtenberg to HUD [the one forgotten in Obama’s “Pride” proclamation] with “I’m not going to put a lesbian in a position like that. If you want to call me a bigot, fine,” fought against any kind of funding related to AIDS. Next to Reagan, there is probably no American more responsible for the deaths of countless gays and others. Helms: “There is not one single case of AIDS in this country that cannot be traced in origin to sodomy.” He even refused to speak to Ryan White’s mother when she visited the Capitol to lobby for the funding bill named after her late son. Helms was also author of the law that still bars HIV+ visitors/emigres to the US. And I don’t give a flying fuck that Bono finally convinced him to support AIDS funding IN AFRICA.
On a lighter note, this occasion is a good one to remind/inform of the time a group of AIDS/gay activists literally put a giant condom on the heinous Helms’ house, paid for in part by money given to them by David Geffen. One of them was “POZ” founder Sean Strub who’s first claim to fame was seducing Tennessee Williams into signing the first fundraising letter for HRCF.
Extra historical footnotes: In his younger, closeted, right wing Republican days, “Tales of the City” troubadour Armistead Maupin was a TV reporter for Helms’ North Carolina TV station. He learned that Helms’ homohating trumped even his hatred of blacks and “liberal” Democrats. Helms particularly hated President Johnson’s Secty of State Dean Rusk, even more after Rusk’s daughter announced she was marrying a black man.
When Maupin interviewed the Imperial Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan about it, the Wiz asked, “What else could you expect from [the daughter of] a man who is a practicing homosexual?”
Racing [no pun intended] back to the station to tell his boss, Helms wouldn’t let him use the quote ripe at once with race and gay baiting because, Helms declared, “That’s the worst thing you can say about anybody.” Whatever Rusk actually was in that regard, there’s film of him mocking a protest by gays outside a meeting he’s in led by Frank Kameny and Barbara Gittings.
CONDOM VIDEO:
youtube.com/watch?v=bngtgTwvKcE
[img]http://blog.wfmu.org/freeform/images/helmsaction1.jpg[/img]
InExile
@Michael @ LeonardMatlovich.com: Very nice history of Helms comment. I remember way back when all the sh*t this man caused for gay people. I especially remember him fighting against funding for AIDS while my friends were dropping left and right. This man’s evil had no bounds! I am so glad he is gone, the earth is a better place without him.
Jaroslaw
Bravo for Julia Boseman but other articles I read on this subject stated the most ever number of senators and representatives sat out of the discussion in protest. Well, now that I think about it, why sit out? Vote no with Julia. Perhaps someone else has a thought on this?
Gabriel
Fuck Jesse Helms and Fuck North Carolina’s House and Senate.
andy_d
@Gabriel: On a positive note, there IS Sen. Julia Boseman. I appreciate her stance.
Gabriel
@andy_d: True that. It was a brave stand for her.
sem
As Jaroslaw pointed out, a large number of legislators actually walked out of the chamber before the vote. 26 of them, in fact, including the House members of the legislative black caucus.
I find it interesting that Queerty decided to comment on this story with the provocative headline “NC Proudly Honors Memory of Racist Homophobe Sen. Jesse Helms” and then completely disregarded (and therefore marginalized) the actions taken by African-American legislators… unlike every other article I’ve seen on the subject (including the linked Q-Notes piece).
While I agree that Sen. Boseman took a courageous stand in actually voting “No” on the resolution, I think it’s damaging and counter-productive to not mention this part of the story… just because a group of individuals protested in a way that some might see as “not strong or important enough” doesn’t make it a useless or ignorable act.
Finally, while I have no defense of a resolution honoring Jesse Helms, it’s harmful and untrue to lump all the rest of the NC state legislators in with his sort of ideology. As NC gets closer to passing its first ever pro-LGBT legislation, it’s also important to realize that there have been, and are, some extremely strong and progressive advocates for LGBT equality in the General Assembly.
Of course, that fact provides no sexy screaming headline, so I can understand why it’s completely ignored.
michael
This is why we can pretty much expect the gay rights movement to pan out about like the civil rights movement. The confederacy is still he confederacy and they have not changed. They are still as backward, ignorant, bigoted as they ever were. just remember everyone to watch how hard we come down on California, because California on its darkest day is a thousand times brighter than any southern state on its brightest.
geoff
How about a nice big statue of Helms complete with flames and a big pitchfork stuck in his ass because that’s probably what’s going on for him right about now.
sem
Michael:
While you’re certainly entitled to your views, I have to ask: So are you just willing to write off huge swaths of states because the work is hard? I apologize if that’s not what you meant, but it seems to be the subtext of your comment.
As one might have inferred from my last post, I live in North Carolina. And while I have a great number of issues with my state, I do see progress being made. It is slow, and yes, that is quite frustrating. But just because it’s hard doesn’t mean it’s not worth doing. In fact, I would argue that’s exactly the reason why it’s so important.
But, as I said, things are changing. I see that, more often than I expect to. Part of my problem with this Queerty post is that I felt it would lead people to the conclusion you’ve (and others) have reached: that NC is full of nothing but bigoted homophobes who blindly follow the Tao of Helms (except, of course, for Sen. Boseman). That is nowhere near the case. Sure, they do exist… but they also exist in California and New York and Massachusetts.
We’re all fighting the same fight. We just don’t all begin at the same starting line. And instead of blindly trashing places, I think it’s more useful to put time and energy into identifying the positive aspects… and utilizing them to effect change.
But maybe that’s just me.
sem
And Michael: I didn’t mean to single you out. I could have picked any number of postings on this thread to make similar comments. Yours is just the one that got me typing. Again.
InExile
Queerty, please remove Helm’s picture from this article! It is so disturbing to see his face again, he is dead, please don’t dig him up again!
galefan2004
@SEM: I understand exactly where you are coming from because I am from Ohio although I have friends and family in RI. Even though RI hasn’t legalized gay marriage, although they have put it on the agenda every year since 1997, people in that state are so much more open minded than the majority of people from Ohio. I have been tempted to move several times. Hell, I’ve been tempted to return to the land of my grand father several times as well (he emigrated from Canada in the early 1900s). However, in the end, I realize that someone has to stay in Ohio and fight for equality, and I don’t see a lot of hands go up. Not to mention, the area I live in is extremely rural. My state house/senate district only has one larger city in it, and the rest of the area is back woods and farms. Its hard to get people motivated when they are that spread out and half the counties you have been in don’t even know what a gay network is.
Andrew
I try to be compassionate to all beings…. but Mr. Helms was, I submit, a turd of vast proportions. A super-turd, if you will. A monolithic-turd-monster. Turdis-colossus. The Titan-of-Turds. In the digital world, a hyper-turd. A “massturd”. Fondly remembered as “Triple-B”, the Bowel-Behemoth of the Beltway.