July 19, 1994, Rev. Richard C. Halverson began the U.S. Senate’s legislative day with prayer. After reading from Isaiah about “perfect peace,” he briefly sermonized about the U.S. Senate being a “formidable area of controversy, conflict, compromise, where unnumbered agendas converge.”
Later that day I found myself in the Jesse Helms Agenda. No, this was not a rock group or a comedy troupe.
North Carolina’s GOP U.S. Sen. Jesse Helms, known as Senator No for his steadfast stinginess with spending taxpayer dollars, had a decidedly anti-LGBT agenda. In the 1980s, Helms opposed funding for the National Endowment for the Arts when it funded the homoerotic works of Robert Mapplethorpe. He also fought against federal funding in the fight against the AIDS epidemic.
Also in the 1980s Helms fought against a federal holiday for Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. because he believed King was a communist. Jesse lost on that. Helms debated against passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act and lost on that. President George H. W. Bush signed the act into law 26 years ago this month.
Sen. Jesse Helms, who died July 4, 2008, was consistent in his opposition to spending federal tax dollars on the AIDS epidemic, the King Holiday and the ADA while strongly supporting federal funding for government production and marketing subsidies on North Carolina’s tobacco industry. I guess he felt that people with AIDS, African Americans and the disabled would enjoy a smoking break.
On the evening of July 19, 22 years ago, Sen. Helms nearly buried me with a heated barrage of suggestive and incendiary legislative language that former Sen. John F. Kerry called a “Senate gay bashing.” What angered Helms that fateful summer evening was employment fairness for federal LGBT workers.
More specifically it was the language federal bureaucrats used to address LGBT employment discrimination in the federal workplace. Clinton administration officials charged me with “promoting” and “recruiting” gays for federal employment. The exact and full language can be found in the Congressional Record for the Senate July 19, 1994, page S 9227, lower left column.
Even in 1994 I recognized the still sensational and potentially politically explosive use of “promoting” and “recruiting” with regard to homosexuality as had San Francisco’s Harvey Milk some 20 years before. I worked to change the wording but the announcement was circulated before I could stop it.
Though Milk worked to neutralize “recruiting” by using it as a joke at the start of his political speeches, Helms knew the political power of the word by suggesting I was recruiting straight men, or possibly young Washington male interns, into a “homosexual lifestyle” before CSPAN cameras.(See the CSPAN video below at about the 3:22:55 time mark.) At that time many people still held the unsupported belief gay men recruited straight men, usually younger men or boys, into a homosexual lifestyle. That was the suggestion Helms made in his Senate speech and his remedy was I should be fired for doing this.
In 1994 as now my motivation for working for employment fairness and opportunity for LGBT workers was based on my personal experience seeing discrimination against gay men and men with AIDS in the workplace. The discrimination was oppressive and repugnant to me. The opportunity arose for me to help end discriminatory employment practices against my LGBT workers and I gladly took it on without any thought of Jesse Helms.
While I survived being fired based on the personal adverse employment advice of U.S. Sen. Jesse Helms, workplace repercussions proved a bit difficult. My car was vandalized, late night telephone threats, hate mail, nasty notes on my government desk and worse. Healthwise I began experiencing panic attacks and I distrusted the intentions of my colleagues.
The Jesse Helms Experience gave me an important lesson about agendas and I credit Rev. Halverson’s religious sermon more than the political sermon from Helms. I learned July 19, 1994, my personal and professional agenda for employment opportunity was significant to me and Helms would not stop me.
I also learned the “agenda” for LGBT workplace opportunity was greater than the politically “formidable” Jesse Helms Agenda. LGBT employment accomplishments since 1994, with the exception of strong federal employment protections, have made significant contributions to our economy and society.
Former U.S. diplomat and economist Jim Patterson is a Washington based writer and speaker. JEPCapitolHill@gmail.com
