For Jesse: A Great Idea

Staying Alive is The Best Revenge

GT12 thinks this is an idea worth following up on and urges all of you out there to do the same.

[Jesse] Helms did more damage to the gay rights movement than any other single person I can think of in the Senate. One particular piece of legislation Helms is responsible for is his infamous HIV travel ban, known as the "Helms Amendment" which outlawed people with HIV from visiting the United States or immigrating to the United States.

The U.S. is now one of only 13 nations including Iraq, China, Saudi Arabia and Sudan that ban HIV positive visitors and immigrants. That law, however, is on its last legs because a Senate panel just approved a move to repeal it.

I think a great way for all LGBT people to “honor” Jesse Helms at
this moment is to make sure that this law is repealed. We cannot allow a pause
due to reflection or “respect.” So call your Congressmen and Senators and tell them that the HIV ban must go and you support the PEPFAR legislation which removes the HIV travel and immigration ban. We need to make sure that Helms’ death accelerates this repeal rather than slows it down.

The Details of the Bipartisan bill to end the travel ban are here

E-mail that Senator now folks!

Senate e-mail addressess here

How Great was Jesse?

In his own words:
"The government should spend less money on people with AIDS because they got sick as a result of deliberate, disgusting, revolting conduct."

And:

"Over the years Helms has declared homosexuality "degenerate," and homosexuals "weak, morally sick wretches." (Newsweek, 12/5/94) In a tirade highlighting his routine opposition to AIDS research funding, Helms lashed out at the Kennedy-Hatch AIDS bill in 1988: "There is not one single case of AIDS in this country that cannot
be traced in origin to sodomy." (States News Service, 5/17/88)"

(Take that, Ryan White!)