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http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20080704/us_time/formersenatorjessehelmsdies
At the moment that is all I am going to say.
At the moment that is all I am going to say.
On domestic issues, he provoked the ire of liberals around the country with his crusade against abortion, homosexuality and affirmative action - programmes to overcome the effects of past discrimination by allocating resources to members of specific minority groups....
"You needed that job. And you were the best qualified. But they had to give it to a minority because of a racial quota. Is that really fair?" he asked potential voters.
Helms commented on the 1963 Civil Rights protests, "The Negro cannot count forever on the kind of restraint that's thus far left him free to clog the streets, disrupt traffic, and interfere with other men's rights."[7][8] He also wrote, "Crime rates and irresponsibility among Negroes are a fact of life which must be faced".[9] The University of North Carolina, which had a reputation of liberalism in the state, was a frequent target of Helms' criticism: in one editorial he suggested a wall be erected around the campus to prevent the university's liberal views from "infecting" the rest of the state. Helms also referred to the university as the "University of Negroes And Communists".[10]
Meanwhile, Democrats retired the ailing Senator B. Everett Jordan, who lost his primary to Congressman Nick Galifianakis, a Greek American, from Durham, North Carolina. Helms played upon Galifianakis' ethnicity during the campaign using the campaign slogan "Vote for Helms — He's One of Us!"[11]
Helms had close ties with and was considered a main sponsor of the right-wing Salvadoran Nationalist Republican Alliance and it's leader and death squad founder Roberto D'Aubuisson.[14][15][16] When confronted with evidence that D'Aubuisson ran death squads that systematically murdered civilians, he replied that "[a]ll I know, is that D'Aubuisson is a free enterprise man and deeply religious."[17]
Helms was "bitterly opposed to federal financing of AIDS research and treatment".[24] Opposing the Kennedy-Hatch AIDS bill in 1988, Helms stated, "There is not one single case of AIDS in this country that cannot be traced in origin to sodomy."[25] When Ryan White died in 1990, his mother went to Congress to speak to politicians on behalf of people with AIDS. She spoke to 23 representatives: Helms refused to speak to her even when she was alone with him in an elevator.[26]
Helms was a supporter of the late Chilean President Augusto Pinochet.[35]
Having attempted, and failed, to block passage of the Ryan White Comprehensive AIDS Resources Emergency Care (CARE) Act passed in 1990, Helms tried to block its refunding in 1995, saying that those with AIDS were responsible for the disease, because they had contracted it because of their "deliberate, disgusting, revolting conduct", and falsely claiming that more federal dollars were spent on AIDS than heart disease or cancer. [37] His opposition to the spending was consonant with his long term anti-gay rhetoric and opposition to civil rights for gay men and women generally. Helms had declared homosexuality "degenerate," and homosexuals "weak, morally sick wretches."[38]
U.S. Sen. Jesse Helms said Wednesday that he was ashamed
to have done so little during his Senate career to fight the worldwide
spread of AIDS and pledged do more during his remaining months in
office.
"I have been too lax too long in doing something really significant
about AIDS," the North Carolina Republican told a gathering of several
hundred Christians at an international conference on AIDS held at a
Washington hotel. "I'm not going to lay it aside on my agenda for the
remaining months I have."