July 16, 2008
The Jesse Helms AIDS Act? Why Not Just Make Rick Santorum AIDS Czar?
Libby Dole, wife of a Viagra spokesman and drooling Britney Spears stooge (who, thank God, lost the presidential race to Bill Clinton), keeper of the Hair-Don’t pictured in the over-airbrushed photo at left, and U.S. Senator (Repug-NC), wants to rename the “Tom Lantos and Henry J. Hyde United States Global Leadership Against HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria Reauthorization Act of 2008″ — the AIDS bill — after Jesse Helms.
In the July 14, 2008 Congressional Record:SA 5074. Mrs. DOLE submitted an amendment intended to be proposed by her to the bill S. 2731, to authorize appropriations for fiscal years 2009 through 2013 to provide assistance to foreign countries to combat HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria, and for other purposes; which was ordered to lie on the table; as follows: On page 1, line 5, strike ‘‘and Henry J. Hyde’’ and insert ‘‘, Henry J. Hyde, and Jesse Helms’’.
Helms, you may recall, opposed funding for AIDS research — even the Ryan White AIDS Act.
He was not a big fan of the gays, Mr. Helms. Gays were “weak, morally sick wretches,” he said, and in 1988, opposing an AIDS research bill championed by, among others, Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, Helms said, “there is not one single case of AIDS in this country that cannot be traced in origin to sodomy.”
In 1995, Helms told the New York Times that the government should spend less on trying to combat AIDS because those suffering from the disease got sick as a result of “deliberate, disgusting, revolting conduct…We’ve got to have some common sense about a disease transmitted by people deliberately engaging in unnatural acts.”
At the time AIDS was, according to the Centers for Disease Control, the leading cause of death for men and women from ages 24 to 44.
Helms also championed legislation that still exists to bar almost every foreign person with HIV from entering the United States for any reason.
Helms later became a supporter of efforts to combat AIDS worldwide going beyond lunches with Bono to support major funding efforts. But he made sure to point out that his epiphany did not apply to the U.S. because of homosexuality. …
It’s bad enough that Henry Hyde’s name — Henry Hyde, homewrecking, adulterous Clinton impeacher who had the audacity to co-sponsor the Federal Marriage Amendment — is there (and so close to that of a real American hero, Tom Lantos), but… Jesse Helsm? Jesse Freaking Helms?!
Senator Dole, is this some sort of sick joke, or what?
H/T to Joe. My. God.
Filed under: HIV/AIDS, Homophobia, Radical Religious Right, Random Stupidity, Republican Sexcapades, Republicans, U.S. Congress
