Jul 11, 2008  |  By: KEVIN NAFF  | COMMENTS     

THE COLLECTIVE AMNESIA and revisionist history that happens when hateful public figures die can be galling to digest.

In the case of former Sen. Jesse Helms, who died July 4, the mainstream media were too often up to their usual tap-dancing around the hard facts. Helms has variously been remembered as a “conservative icon,” “tender-hearted” and a “brave and bold man.”

For gays, like me, who came of age during the 1980s, Helms will be remembered as a racist homophobe who hastened the deaths of untold thousands through his unrepentant opposition to federal AIDS legislation and hateful anti-gay rhetoric.

Late in life, Helms experienced a much-publicized epiphany on AIDS, thanks to the influence of U2’s Bono. In 2001, the Irish rocker-turned-activist praised Helms.

“I told him that 2,103 verses of scripture pertain to the poor, and Jesus speaks of judgment only once — and it’s not about being gay or sexual morality,” Bono said. “He was really moved. He was in tears. Later he told me he was ashamed about what he used to think about AIDS.”

But in those awful early years of the disease, it was about being gay (and still is when you look at recent statistics on infection rates). And Helms wasn’t ashamed about his views of gay men who were suffering. He embraced the fight against AIDS in Africa and developing countries after years of opposing any federal action on the disease. His sympathy never extended to gay men, only to “innocent” victims in poor countries, a view reflected by President Bush’s policies to this day.

As Republican AIDS activist Carl Schmid told the Blade just last week, the Bush administration “has ignored the gay population as it is related to HIV/AIDS. … I think if it were another population, they would be all over it.”

PEOPLE WITH HIV and AIDS are still suffering at the hands of Helms’ legacy. He was a pioneer of the shameful ban on immigration and travel by HIV-positive people, a national embarrassment that remains in effect. In the coming weeks, Congress is expected to vote on the PEPFAR bill, which contains a provision repealing the travel ban. It’s long overdue and another step in ridding the country of the kind of naked bigotry so often espoused by Helms.

But Helms had a long record of being on the wrong side of history, from his overt racism (he proudly described himself as a “redneck” and once reportedly sang “Dixie” to Sen. Carol Moseley Braun in an elevator) to his homophobia (in 1994, he described gays as “weak, morally sick wretches”) to his opposition to funding for the arts and AIDS research.

He frequently blamed gay men for the disease, demonizing us as sick.

“There is not one single case of AIDS in this country that cannot be traced in origin to sodomy,” he said in 1988, ignoring all other means of HIV transmission. He once famously refused to speak to the mother of Ryan White, who had just died. But he probably couldn’t look her in the eye, given his outspoken opposition to the massive federal aid bill named for her son.   

HELMS NEVER WASTED an opportunity to attack gay and lesbian Americans. He opposed the nomination of Roberta Achtenberg to a HUD position, calling her a “damn lesbian.” It’s gratifying that Helms himself had a damn lesbian for a granddaughter.

He once sought to strip funding for two National Institutes of Health sex surveys and transfer the funds to a program advocating abstinence before marriage.

“The homosexuals hate it, the ‘free sex’ crowd hates it,” Helms said in 1991 of his amendment. “I’m sick and tired of pandering to the homosexual community in this country.”

And Helms was as racist as he was homophobic, resorting to racial stereotyping and fear mongering during various campaigns for public office over the years.

Maybe the prospect of Barack Obama as president was too much for him to bear and so he shuffled off this mortal coil. His death — and Obama’s candidacy — marks a historic turning point in race relations for the country. National public figures like sitting senators can no longer get away with open expressions of racism. We are on the verge of electing a black man president. Gay couples are marrying legally on both coasts. It must have been a scary world for Helms.

With his death, and the recent death of fellow hate monger Jerry Falwell, the United States moves closer to a more perfect union.