The Gist

Jesse Helms is Dead

Happy 4th of July! The former North Carolina senator who viciously attacked LGBT people, and who blocked funding for AIDS programs and HIV prevention programs at such a critical time in 1980s, is dead today at the age of 86. He was a racist, a homophobe, a misogynist and an all-around hatemonger. Let's not let the media whitewash any of that.

One by one, these monsters are going down, along with their dangerous troglodyte views. But it's bittersweet when I think of all the lives lost.

No, I do not have any sympathy at this time for his family or anyone else connected to this man, so fuck that usual nicety reserved even for the family of those with whom you disagreed. This is beyond a "disagreement." Jesse Helms almost single-handedly allowed the deaths of thousands -- willfully denied them help -- while pushing his moral agenda in the Senate. His faint supposed apology in recent years -- for not doing more on AIDS, not for his vicious homophobia -- was far too little, too late, designed to clean up his ghastly legacy a little bit before he croaked. Throughout the 80s and 90s my friends died, and perhaps some of your friends died too, because this man stalled vital research and prevention efforts and villified gay people.

Anyone close to him had the responsibility to speak out, loudly, against what he did. They all sat by, apparently even his granddaughter who is a judge in North Carolina and is a lesbian. Fuck Jesse Helms, and may he rot in hell.