Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
LGBTQ Pride 2022: Jesse Helms and me
North Carolina Sen. Jesse Helms died July 4, 2008. He is still remembered for his strong and often offensive political views, especially about the LGBTQ community.
June is LGBTQ Pride Month. It is time for the LGBTQ community to recall past political victories and strategize for the future. I want to recall my LGBTQ feud with Helms.
On July 19, 1994, I left my government office to attend a church service in Washington, D.C.’s Woodley Park neighborhood. On Tuesday evenings, parishioners at my Episcopal church prepared dinner for church members, their friends living with AIDS.
After the meal and the requisite dishwashing, I returned to my Northwest D.C. residence to find the lights on my 1994-era telephone answering machine blinking wildly. Sitting at my desk, I listened in disbelief to the recorded messages.
“Senator Jesse Helms told C-SPAN he’s firing you,” was one message. Multiple other messages gave me similar ominous notices Helms was angry at me. Why?
The Congressional Record for July 19, 1994, captured Helms in all his anger. “Uncle” Jesse, as he was known on Capitol Hill, introduced an amendment to an appropriation bill for the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) titled: “Ending the Use of Taxpayer Funds to Encourage Employees to Accept Homosexuality as a Legitimate or Normal Lifestyle.”
Jesse went on to describe the Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Program Manager at USDA. I had been assigned to this work weeks before by then-Agriculture Secretary Mike Espy. I spoke about the program and my work at an Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) forum in Arlington, Virginia. I spoke of a federal workplace free of discrimination against gay workers. In 1994, that was controversial!
An EEO publication reported on my speech. Helms got a copy and learned about the program, authorized by Agriculture Secretary Mike Espy to “promote gay employment.” Jesse saw this as “promoting the gay agenda” in government. While I was outspoken in my support of such employees at USDA, I had nothing to do with the description or authorization of the GLB Program Manager position.
Helms did not see the wisdom of a GLB Program Manager at USDA. Espy also authorized the “recruitment of gays, lesbians and bisexuals” for employment at USDA. This enraged Helms.
I recall the first time I read about USDA’s GLB Program Manager position. It contained this recruitment language that infuriated Helms. It also alarmed me.
I scheduled an appointment with Espy’s Equal Employment Opportunity staff. I urged them to revise the language, as “recruitment” and “promotion,” could set off a political earthquake.
The EEO staffers failed to see the wisdom of my concerns. I nearly resigned in frustration.
Helms exploded when a copy of the program arrived on his desk. On July 19, Helms took legislative action to stop me from using federal money to “compel, instruct, encourage, urge or persuade” department employees to “recruit, on the basis of sexual orientation, homosexuals for employment at the department” nor to “embrace, accept, condone or celebrate homosexuality as a normal or legitimate lifestyle.” Helms was hot on July 19, 1994!
Helms’ anti-gay amendment passed with votes from 91 other senators, including Delaware’s then-Senator Joe Biden, California’s Dianne Feinstein, and Massachusetts’ John Kerry. Those voting against it included Patty Murray, Edward Kennedy, Daniel Moynihan and the sole Republican, Bob Packwood. Only Murray and Feinstein presently serve in the U.S. Senate.
Espy’s choice of words to describe his gay employment program at USDA was so incendiary even LGBT supporters like Biden, Feinstein and Kerry had to vote with Jesse Helms!
The Helms Amendment, No. 2039 to 103 HR 4554 or “Jesse’s Amendment on Jim,” as friends termed it, crafted to stop me from “compelling” Agriculture employees from a celebration of homosexuals as normal and legitimate was struck from USDA’s final appropriations bill. It never became law.
Words matter! I warned Espy’s EEO staff of this when I read the language used to authorize his GLB Program Manager position. If I had worked for Helms in 1994, I would have warned him as well. Again, words matter.
History has judged Espy and Helms poorly largely based on their choice of words. Others should steer clear of heated words, whether written, spoken or tweeted.
Pride 2022 is a time to be grateful for U.S. Supreme Court victories that offer employment protections to the LGBTQ community. March in Pride!