Jesse Helms has died today. And I have lost track of the number of gay friends who have written me congratulatory or celebratory emails and IMs. It really is terrible—yes, the man opposed our right to an equal stake in society, the right to have a family, the right simply to live our lives without men like him imposing his views on us. But celebrating his death? Helms has been a non-issue for years—no matter what crimes one may pin on him, if people really think he could have spoken magic words and suddenly convinced people to stop condomless sex in the 1980s… well, that is simply delusional.
The amount of hate being spewed at a man we all condemned for hatred is simply despicable. And people wonder why I have such problems being associated with other gay men. His family is grieving, just as our families grieved when our loved ones die. To dance upon his grave, no matter how much you opposed his message—one friend even crowed that he was “rotting in hell, paling around with Hitler and Stalin”—is so far beyond the pale, I really am out of words.
If you let the genie out of the bottle, it’s not the genie’s fault he can’t be put back in.