“Sen. Elizabeth Dole (R-NC) yesterday introduced an amendment that would have added the name of Jesse Helms to the title of the HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria bill that is before the Senate. Helms, who died eleven days ago, was the nation’s most vociferous foe of federal funding for HIV/AIDS programs from the epidemic’s beginning until he left the Senate.” [Atomic Gay Wonk]
Vile Irony.
Help make sure LGBTQ+ stories are being told...
We can't rely on mainstream media to tell our stories. That's why we don't lock Queerty articles behind a paywall. Will you support our mission with a contribution today?
Cancel anytime · Proudly LGBTQ+ owned and operated
Darth Paul
I’m sure her local sh!theel GOP coven put her up to it. That doesn’t make her any less of a turd, though.
reversion
Er, I never liked Jesse Helms (and I’m an atheist), but her comment is incorrect since he originally was a foe for federal funding of HIV/AIDS programs, but Bono said a few things to the guy a few years ago that changed that…
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/aids/interviews/bono.html
Bono on FRONTLINE:
Q: You reached out to the American evangelical community pretty actively. Why did you do that?
Bono: You reached out to the American evangelical community pretty actively. Why did you do that?
I was offended to discover that the religiosity of this country, which is one of the reasons why we are getting places in some ways on debt cancellation — the churches got behind that — was not available to the AIDS emergency. …
I think [that] of evangelicals polled in 2000, only 6 percent felt it incumbent upon them to respond to the AIDS emergency. I was deeply offended by that, so I asked to meet with as many church leaders as I could, and used examples from the Scriptures. Isn’t this the leprosy of the age?, I argued. Isn’t this what the Christ spent his time with? Yet the church now is walking across the road and looking the other way, and does that not contradict the very central tenets of the Scriptures that you believe are literally true?
I was amazed at the response, because a lot of people changed their mind, which was amazing. In fact, I would argue now that the evangelical community, particularly the young ones, especially in the Christian music scene, are some of the most active activists we have. So it’s kind of thrown me for one, actually. I used to love giving hell about them, and I can’t anymore.
There was, of course, an amazing incident [with] [former Sen.] Jesse Helms [R-N.C.], the great old cold warrior himself. After going through this with him and explaining that there was 2,103 verses of Scriptures pertaining to poverty, and that second to redemption, this is the second most important theme, and that sexual behavior, even misbehavior, doesn’t seem to be there that much — it’s mentioned a couple of times in the Old Testament — he was amazing, actually, because he not only was moved by this; he was moved to do something. And he had a press conference where he publicly repented for the way he thought about the AIDS virus. That really helped us with the evangelicals. …
reversion
Gah…repeated the question and attributed it to Bono…..oh well.
mark
Liddy the Empty Wig…suck my queer AIDS infected dick!
or go tie popscicle sticks to Bob’s wrinkled limp dick
mark
Liddy
watch your public speaking engagements…pies happen BIATCH!
http://www.doxafestival.ca/doxa-06/archives/archives_upto2004/doxa2003/images/anita_bryant_lg.jpg
http://www.backtothesugarcamp.com/anitabryant_pie2.jpg
emb
I’m afraid a last-minute half-hearted “conversion” by a pop star doesn’t make up for decades of loathesome awfulness on this and virtually any other topic.
Dole’s nonsense is just another example of the republican doubleplusungood propaganda machine in action, trying (usually successfully) to fool the American people into thinking false is true and true is false.
crazylove
She’s only doing this because she’s getting a real challenge for her re-election effort from the Democratic candidate against her this year. So, she feels the need to prove how “conservative” she is by kissing up to a racist, homophobic dead guy.
GoodBuddy
Is this more obscene than the republican naming an airport after Ronald Reagan after he fired the air traffic controllers?
reversion
I’m not saying that his name should be on the bill, but rather, the reason why Dole thinks his name should be on it is because if it were not for his little “conversion”, then the other republican evangelicals would not have changed their position and the first bill would not even have passed. She probably thinks that the reason this bill exists is because he changed his, and others, minds on the first one.