No one's death is cause for celebration, but Jesse Helms's retirement from politics certainly was. My take (2002) on the man who banned people with HIV from entering America (you really had to be a special kind of human being to think of that):
He is often referred to...as "Senator No." Better would be "Senator Zero," as in "zero-sum." Reagan made conservatism credible by showing that it could solve problems. It could make headway against inflation, against economic entropy, against communism, even against "malaise." He believed that dynamic change, kindled by the prodigious energies of entrepreneurs and ordinary people, would produce win-win outcomes: a country that was stronger and also more genuinely compassionate, richer but also fairer.Then there is Helms. In his world, if homosexuals win, heterosexuals lose. If blacks win, whites lose...
The difference between Reagan and Helms is the difference between a conservatism of hope and a conservatism of resentment. There are, I have little doubt, literally millions of Americans who would be conservatives today if not for the snarling visage of Jesse Helms.
In the fullness of time, history may write that Helms, despite his best efforts, did us a favor by helping discredit homophobia. A pity he degraded conservatism in the process.