Former Republican Senator Jesse Helms, who built a career along the fault lines of racial politics and battled gays, liberals, communists and the occasional fellow Republican during 30 conservative years in Congress, died on the fourth of July aged 86.
"Homosexuals are weak, morally sick wretches," he would announce at the height of his power in the 1990s. Abortionists and various racial groups also suffered his controversial comments. He obstructed so many Democratic bills and presidential appointments that he got the nickname 'Senator No', which he delighted in.
In the early days of the AIDS virus, Helms was quick to condemn gay people. "I've never heard once in this chamber anybody say to the homosexuals, 'stop what you're doing.' If they would stop what they're doing there would not be one additional case of AIDS in the United States," he famously said in 1988.
He softened his views on AIDS in later years after several clashes with gay activists, advocating greater federal funding to fight the disease in Africa and elsewhere overseas.
In 1993, when then-President 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. "If you want to call me a bigot, fine."
An obituary of Jesse Helms is on 365gay.com, linked below.
