Jesse Helms is publishing his memoirs. The headline of the AP article covering this reads:
Helms mea culpa on AIDS, not integration
He regrets gay labeling, but not stand against desegregation
So Jesse is not sorry that he opposed integration – he feels it would have been better to just wait and any decade now the darkies would have been able to move up to the front of the bus “naturally”.
But let’s take a closer look at what AP characterizes as his “regret” over “gay labelling”.
Helms also was an outspoken opponent of laws to protect homosexuals from discrimination and of funding for AIDS research, but he writes in the book that his views evolved during his final years in the Senate. He cited friendships he developed with North Carolina evangelist Franklin Graham and rock singer Bono, both of whom got him involved in the fight against the AIDS epidemic in Africa.
“Until then,” Helms writes, “it had been my feeling that AIDS was a disease largely spread by reckless and voluntary sexual and drug-abusing behavior, and that it would probably be confined to those in high-risk populations. I was wrong.”
“Until then,” Helms writes, “it had been my feeling that AIDS was a disease largely spread by reckless and voluntary sexual and drug-abusing behavior, and that it would probably be confined to those in high-risk populations. I was wrong.”
Umm – the only way that I can process that apology is:
Everything was great as long as I thought that only fags got AIDS – I didn’t realize that other people got it too.
Sorry about that.
Man- I feel so much better after that apology.
