I just watched Frontline’s extremely good 4 hour documentary on AIDS and it mentioned Jesse Helms conversion from an anti-AIDS activist to someone who actually tried to fund AIDS. Helms states that Bono & Franklin Graham were what converted him.
Helms is a conservative and has a ‘let the stupid and immoral suffer the consequences of their actions’ type. Helm’s says as much about AIDS
Helms also was an outspoken opponent of laws to protect homosexuals from discrimination and of funding for AIDS research, but he writes in the book that his views evolved during his final years in the Senate. He cited friendships he developed with North Carolina evangelist Franklin Graham and rock singer Bono, both of whom got him involved in the fight against the AIDS epidemic in Africa.
“Until then,” Helms writes, “it had been my feeling that AIDS was a disease largely spread by reckless and voluntary sexual and drug-abusing behavior, and that it would probably be confined to those in high-risk populations. I was wrong.”
So somehow Helms was convinced that HIV/AIDS was not due to voluntary or immoral behavior like prostitution, libertine sexual activity, homosexuality or IV drug usage. How was this done exactly? Was it pointed out that alot of people got HIV due to things like hemophilia, husbands who are not faithful and the wife doesn’t know about it (giving her HIV), rape and children catching it from parents? I am guessing somehow Helm’s was informed that HIV was not due solely to behavior he considers voluntary and immoral, but also to behavior that is involuntary and moral. Does anyone know how it was done? Bono makes mention of bringing up matthew 25:31-46 which mentions Jesus’s condemning those who refused to help the poor and the desperate and he also mentioned the 2000-3000 references to helping the poor in the Bible as ways he influenced Helms.
So if this kind of attitude influence works on Helms, what was it? Was it just informing him that being a good Christian involved helping the poor and that HIV/AIDS was due to moral, involuntary behavior just as much as anything when he had originally felt being a good christian meant opposing behavior he considered immoral and that HIV/AIDS was due to voluntary, immoral behavior?
:smack:
Maybe I should read your whole post instead of just the title before posting. Bono mentioned Jesus’ story about being hungry, naked, etc and that apparently got to him.
I misunderstood what was meant by “fund AIDS”. I read that as meaning that Helms somehow wanted to fund the spread of AIDS (not its cure) before having his change of heart. I see now that I of course misread.
I remember seeing an interview a couple of years ago where Helms was remarking on how impressed he was by Bono’s presentation and his use of Biblical passages in particular.
“That boy has studied his Bible,” said Helms.
Bono deserves credit for going right to one of the most difficult sells he could have found in Congress, speaking to him in his own language and turning him around.
Helms was against helping when he thought it was only fags and druggies who had it. But now he has realized GASP that it might spread to nice republican girls and boys.
I take your point about the recipient being “innocent”, as it were, but unfaithful husbands and rape are immoral and so too if children are getting it through sexual activity by their parents.
Dear Bono,
My husband won’t ever cook dinner, even if I’ve had a bad day at work. Do you think you could give him a talking to?
Sincerely,
Tired in Birmingham
So, do you think he tipped his ratty cowboy hat on his way out of Helms’s office, winked to a bystander and said “My work here is done”?
I’m sure I said that wrong, and I truly didn’t mean any offense. If there was any implication that what some consider immoral behavior leads to suffering, I didn’t mean that.
