Editing Jesse Helms (section)

===Views on homosexuality===
{{quote|Nothing positive happened to [[Sodom and Gomorrah]] and nothing positive is likely to happen to America if our people succumb to the drumbeats of support for the homosexual lifestyle.|author=Jesse Helms|title=''The New York Times''<ref name="Holmes, NYT 5 Jy"/>}}

Helms had a negative view of  lesbian, gay, [[bisexual]], and [[transgender]] ([[LGBT]]) people and [[LGBT rights in the United States]].<ref name="Briscoe DV 14 Jy">{{cite web | last=Briscoe | first=Ben | title=LGBT rights step forward as 'Old Guard' leader passes away | work=Dallas Voice | date=July 14, 2008 | url=http://www.edgeboston.com/index.php?ch=news&sc=glbt&sc2=news&sc3=&id=77327 | access-date=July 15, 2008 | archive-date=January 20, 2012 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120120033809/http://www.edgeboston.com/index.php?ch=news&sc=glbt&sc2=news&sc3=&id=77327 | url-status=dead }}</ref><ref name="Holmes TWSJ 5 Jy"/>  Helms called homosexuals "weak, morally sick wretches" and tried to cut funding for the [[National Endowment for the Arts]] for supporting the "gay-oriented artwork of photographer [[Robert Mapplethorpe]]".<ref>Jesse Helms, "Tax-Paid Obscenity." ''Nova Law Review'' 14 (1989): 317. [http://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?handle=hein.journals/novalr14&div=35&id=&page= online]</ref><ref name="The Week 18 Jy">{{cite web | title=Jesse Helms: The Far-right Senator Who Refused To Compromise | work=The Week | date=July 18, 2008 | url=http://theweekdaily.com/article/index/87141/3/3/Jesse_Helms | access-date=July 12, 2008 | archive-date=October 3, 2016 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161003124045/http://theweekdaily.com/article/index/87141/3/3/Jesse_Helms | url-status=dead }}</ref> In 1993, when then-president [[Bill Clinton]] wanted to appoint [[closeted|'out']] lesbian [[Roberta Achtenberg]] to assistant secretary of the [[Department of Housing and Urban Development]], Helms held up the confirmation "because she's a damn lesbian", adding "she's not your garden-variety lesbian. She's a militant-activist-mean lesbian".<ref name="Holmes TWSJ 5 Jy">{{cite news | last = Holmes | first =Elizabeth | title=Jesse Helms (1921–2008): Ex-Senator Served North Carolina for Three Decades | work=The Wall Street Journal | date=July 5, 2008 | url =https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB121521859205329713 | access-date=July 15, 2008}}</ref>  Helms also stated "I'm not going to put a lesbian in a position like that. If you want to call me a bigot, fine."<ref name="Briscoe DV 14 Jy"/> When Clinton urged that gays be allowed to serve openly in the armed forces, Helms said the president "better have a bodyguard" if he visited North Carolina.<ref name="The Week 18 Jy"/> His views on gay and lesbian citizens were depicted in the 1998 documentary film ''[[Dear Jesse]]''.

Helms initially fought against increasing federal financing for [[HIV/AIDS]] research and treatment, saying the disease resulted from "unnatural" and "disgusting" homosexual behavior.<ref name="Holmes, NYT 5 Jy"/> In his final year in the Senate, he strongly supported [[HIV/AIDS in Africa|AIDS measures in Africa]], where heterosexual transmission of the disease is most common, and continued to hold the belief that the "homosexual lifestyle" is the cause of the spread of the epidemic in America.<ref name="Holmes, NYT 5 Jy"/><ref name="Najafi TWB 17 June">{{cite web|last=Najafi |first=Yusef |title=Helms regrets AIDS stance: Former senator 'wrong' on AIDS funding because families hurt |work=The Washington Blade |date=June 17, 2005 |url=http://www.washblade.com/2005/6-17/news/national/helms.cfm |access-date=July 15, 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080726083329/http://www.washblade.com/2005/6-17/news/national/helms.cfm |archive-date=July 26, 2008 |url-status=live }}</ref>

During his 1990 campaign against Harvey Gantt, Helms ran television commercials accusing Gantt of running a "secret campaign" in homosexual communities and of being committed to "mandatory gay rights laws" including "requiring local schools to hire gay teachers".<ref name="nytimes.com"/>

In 1993, when he voted against confirming [[Ruth Bader Ginsburg]] to the [[Supreme Court of the United States|Supreme Court]], he cited her support for the "homosexual agenda" as one of his reasons for doing so.<ref>{{cite news|url=http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/1993-08-04/news/9301270900_1_judge-ginsburg-high-court-appointment-senate-judiciary-committee|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150610091817/http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/1993-08-04/news/9301270900_1_judge-ginsburg-high-court-appointment-senate-judiciary-committee|url-status=dead|archive-date=June 10, 2015|title=Ginsburg To Join High Court|newspaper=[[The Washington Post]]|date=August 4, 1993|access-date=June 10, 2015}}</ref>

In his 2017 memoir, ''[[Logical Family: A Memoir|Logical Family]]'', gay author [[Armistead Maupin]] recalls that Helms described homosexuality as an "abomination" when he was working for him as a young man.<ref name="logicalfamily7682"/> Maupin adds that he later gave an interview about his first novel on the same TV station, and said, "I worked here when Jesse Helms was here. Now he's in Washington, ranting about militant homosexuals, and I'm out running around being one."<ref name="logicalfamily7682"/>