Helms the Hater News Article from The Washington Post

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Copyright (c) 1990 The Washington Post

November 8, 1990, Thursday, Final Edition

SECTION: EDITORIAL, PAGE A31

LENGTHZ 7L5 WOrdS

HEADLINE: HC1MS thc HATET

SERIES: Occasional

BYLINE: Richard Cohen

BODY:
To aII the statistics regarding the North Carolina senatorial race won by

Jesse Helms, rdy I add this one: 62. It is the reported number of people
murdered last year in attacks on homosexuals. The best you can say about Jesse
Hetms is that he did nothing to lower those numbers.

In the closing days of his campaign, Helms appealed not only to racj-sm but to
homophobia as well. He accused his opponent, Harvey Gantt, of accepting money
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(c) 1990 The Washington Post, November 8, L990

from gay groups funds raised, Helrns said, in gay bars. rrWhy are homosexuals
buying this election for Harvey Gantt? " a Helms newspaper ad asked. rrBecause
Hirvey Gantt wiII support their demands for mandatory gay rights!!r'The word

tfmandatoyyrr, like the double exclamation points, I^7as a redundancy for dolts.
Hide your children, the trgueerstr are coming.

Hatred of homosexuals remains the last acceptable American bigotry. Like many
other forms of prejudice, it rests on a scaffolding of stereotyPes, some of them
taken from real- life, some of them almost inaginary. One of the latter is the
gay teacher who seduces boys, converting thern to hornosexuality. In real life,
itrs heterosexuals who usually do the seducing, but Helms played on the fear
anlnday. It's his brand of leadership.

Racism, on the other hand, has been banished from the American political
d.ialogue. Thatrs why David Duke, a racist and antisemite if there ever was one,
was booted from the Republican Party. Duke's racism was once raw and
uncomplicated -- as ravr as once being a Nazi and a member of the Ku Klux KIan.
That -being the case, it hardly mattered that in his recent senatorial campaiqn,
Duke eschewed outright racism and concentrated instead on affirmative action. We

all knew what he was saYing.

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But really, don,t we know also what Helms was saying? He aired a televj-sion

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commercial that showed nothing more than a pair of white hands in evident
anguish as they crurnpted what is evidently a job rejection letter. rrYou needed
that job, and you were the best qualified,rr the announcer says. rrBut they had to
give it to a minority because of a racial quota. Is that fair?rr

My answer rnight well be: no. I have my problems with affirmatj-ve action, and
I think the issue is worth discussing. But Helms was not discussing affirmative
action at all -- not in a way that rnakes sense. Instead, he was attenpting to
polarize hJ-s state along racial Iines, something he has done before. A clear
opponent of every civit rights bill ever to come down tlre pike, a racial
trouble-izer of the first order (Jesse Jackson is a-coming, he warned his
constituents), Helms was in no way discussing affirmative action. Instead, he
donned the sheet that could not be seen.

The prirnary obligation of a politician is not di-fferent from that of a
physiciln: First, do no harm. Helms does plenty of harm. He is entitled to be a
pofiticaf reactiondty, not to mention a mean and cantankerous human being. But
nis appeals to bigotry, above all to homophobia, should put him beyond the pale
of American politics. For some reason, though, they do not. The same GOP that
would have nothlng to do with Duke embraced Helms. President Bush campaigned for
him twice, raising an estimated $ 1 miIlion. What point of liqrht was this?
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When it comes to homosexuals, the surn and substance of Helms' message is one
that encourages continued discrinination and, indeed, violence. Helms may say,
Itprove itrtt to which I respond, sorry, I cannot. But as a citizen and a
journalist, I know my country. I know, in other words, that just as lynchings
occurred in a hospitable political culture, so do assaults on gays. There were
nearly 8OO of thern last year, some resulting in death, others in injuries so
horritle (attempts at castration) that few newspapers would report them in any
detail. To some men, the difference between gays and deer is a mere
technj-caIity. The latter can only be hunted in season.

Helms is once again a winner and, as usual, for a variety of reasons. But one
of them, surely, is that he appealed to the prejudices of the electorate. It's
too late now for George Bush to refuse to carnpaign for Helms, too late for the
GOp to treat him as it did David Duke. Maybe the most we can ask is some sense
of shame. For the Republican Party in the matter of Jesse He1ms, it would be
well-deserved.

TYPE: OPINION EDITORIAL

SUBJECT: U.S. SENATE, NORTH CAROLINA

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Copyright (c) 1990 The Tirnes Mirror Company;
Los Angeles Times

November 7, l-990, Wednesday, Home Edition

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