Speaking Ill of the Dead

Jesse Helms died today.

Some choice quotes from the man himself:

"As for homosexuality, the Bible judges it, I do not...I understand the militant homosexuals and they understand me...As for Mark, I wish he had not played Russian roulette with his sexual activity."
-- Response to a constituent on the death of her son from AIDS, 1995

"Homosexuals are weak, morally sick wretches."
-- Radio broadcast, 1995

"Mr. Clinton better watch out if he comes down here. He'd better have a bodyguard."
-- Interview on CNN, 1994

"She's a damn lesbian. I am not going to put a lesbian in a position like that. If you want to call me a bigot, fine."
-- Explaining why he was opposing the appointment of a woman for a cabinet post, 1993

"Moseley-Braun tells a story of Helms later getting on a Senate elevator and singing Dixie, vowing to keep it up ''until she cries.'"
-- Comment made to Senator Carol Moseley-Braun of Illinois, the first Black woman elected to the U.S. Senate, 1993

"They should ask their parents if it would be all right for their son or daughter to marry a Negro."
-- In response to Duke University students holding a vigil after Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated, 1968

"White people, wake up before it is too late. Do you want Negroes working beside you, your wife and your daughters, in your mills and factories? Frank Graham favors mingling of the races."
-- Attack ad written for the Senate campaign of North Carolina Republican candidate Willis Smith, 1950


He was a vile, miserable, hateful human being, a racist, a homophobe, a bigot and frankly evil, and I refuse to stay silent while his legacy is being written. If there is any justice in the universe, he will receive in death exactly what he gave in life, in full and equal measure.

I am sorry he's dead, though.

I'm sorry that he didn't live long enough to see his worst fucking nightmare come true: a black man as President of the United States.