Washington Blade - July 11, 2008
Joshua Lynsen

A five-term U.S. senator from North Carolina, Helms routinely opposed efforts to fight the spread of HIV and AIDS. He also championed in 1987 the nation's ban on foreign visitors and immigrants with HIV.

"Jesse Helms was a man who built a career on hating the most vulnerable people in society," said Vic Basile, a former Human Rights Campaign executive director.

"He started off as a racist and then became an ardent homophobe, picking on people who were sick and dying," Basile said. "He was a bully and a bigot. And those who now remember him as just a conservative, I think malign the word conservative."

Helms, who died July 4 after years of declining health, was lauded by President Bush and others for taking principled stands during his 30 years in Congress. He retired from the Senate in 2003.

"Jesse Helms was a kind, decent and humble man and a passionate defender of what he called 'the Miracle of America,'" Bush said in a statement.

But gay activists criticized Helms, who once penned legislation to bar federal agencies from promoting or encouraging any "homosexual sexual activity" in AIDS prevention and educational materials.

The legislation is credited with helping give rise to the abstinence-only sex education programs that exist today in many schools.

"People say he was a nice guy and all that, but that doesn't really matter to me," said Carl Schmid, the AIDS Institute's director of federal affairs. "He made it something bad to be gay. And we're still fighting that."

Schmid, a gay Republican, also said Helms "really set back the Republican Party."

"He really is responsible for the image of the Republican Party for many gay people," Schmid said. "He tarnished the Republican Party."

Helms made his first mark on the nation's HIV and AIDS policies in July 1987, when he pushed the U.S. Public Health Service to add HIV to its list of diseases that barred a person's entrance to the United States.

Later codified in immigration law, the ban could soon be overturned by Congress.

Helms next attempted to amend the Centers for Disease Control budget in October 1987 to bar prevention and education materials that "promote or encourage, directly or indirectly," gay sexual activities.

In response, HRC ran ads in major newspapers lambasting Helms for opposing "the only known way to stop AIDS," noting that "he's winning while more are dying."

Under public pressure, lawmakers struck the word "indirectly" in conference committee, allowing gay organizations and community centers to receive federal funds to care for people living with AIDS.

Helms drafted other legislative salvos in the years that followed.

In 1991, he sought to fine and imprison health care providers who know they have HIV and perform invasive medical procedures without notifying patients. The proposal passed the Senate, 81-18, but died in the House.

In 1995, during reauthorization of the Ryan White CARE Act, Helms sought to cut off funding to local gay community centers that provide care to people with HIV and AIDS. The proposal was defeated in conference committee.

During his final congressional session, Helms received a zero on the HRC scorecard.

His opposition to gay concerns made Helms the target of protesters, including a group whose members unfurled a giant imitation condom over the senator's Virginia home in 1991.

Labeled "a condom to stop unsafe politics," the inflatable nylon balloon called Helms "deadlier than a virus." AIDS activist group Treatment Action Guerillas, which later became Treatment Action Group, was behind the stunt.

Basile said the protest was a rare moment of levity among those who constantly battled Helms.

"We were never going to change this guy from being a hater to even being a quiet opponent," Basile said. "He was what he was."

Helms offered a small concession, though, in his 2005 memoir, "Here's Where I Stand." In that volume, Helms wrote that he "was wrong" in his beliefs about HIV and AIDS.

"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."

Schmid and Basile this week said they were not sure how to take the memoir's passage.

"I always appreciate the redemptive possibilities in people," Basile said. "But I sort of feel like he had a lot to apologize for - not just to us as gay people, but to the black community and to every vulnerable group."

Helms never publicly apologized for his comments about gays, who he called during a 1995 radio broadcast "weak, morally sick wretches."

Brent Childers, executive director of gay advocacy group Faith In America, said such dialogue would not today be acceptable from a U.S. senator.

"I believe that we're at a point where the majority of Americans just do not buy in to the anti-gay rhetoric," he said, "whether it's espoused with the ugly words that Sen. Helms used, or the code language we see being used in a lot of political rhetoric today."

Basile said it's by such rhetoric, though, that many gays will remember Helms.

"I think he'll be remembered as a guy who was a hater and a bigot," Basile said. "And those who lost loved ones will remember him with probably a lot more animus."

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