178 Facts About Jesse Helms

On domestic social issues, Jesse Helms opposed civil rights, disability rights, environmentalism, feminism, gay rights, affirmative action, access to abortions, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, and the National Endowment for the Arts.

Jesse Helms brought an "aggressiveness" to his conservatism, as in his rhetoric against homosexuality.

Jesse Helms was the longest-serving popularly elected Senator in North Carolina's history.

Jesse Helms was widely credited with shifting the one-party state into a competitive two-party state.

Jesse Helms was considered the most stridently conservative American politician of the post-1960s era, especially in opposition to federal intervention into what he considered state affairs.

Jesse Helms acquired his first job sweeping floors at The Monroe Enquirer at age nine.

The family attended services each Sunday at First Baptist, Jesse Helms later saying he would never forget being served chickens raised in the family's backyard by his mother, following their weekly services.

Jesse Helms recalled initially being bothered by their chickens becoming their food, but abandoned this view to allow himself to concentrate on his mother's cooking.

Jesse Helms recalled that his family rarely spoke about politics, reasoning that the political climate did not call for discussions as most of the people the family were acquainted with were members of the Democratic Party.

Jesse Helms briefly attended Wingate Junior College, now Wingate University, near Monroe, before leaving for Wake Forest College.

Jesse Helms retained a positive view of Wingate into his later years, saying the school was filled with individuals that treated him with kindness and that he had made it an objective to repay the institution for what it had done for him.

Jesse Helms stated that his goal in attending was never to get a diploma but instead form the skills needed for forms of employment he was seeking at a time when he aspired to become a journalist.

Jesse Helms became the city news editor of the Raleigh Times.

Jesse Helms later became a radio and television newscaster and commentator for WRAL-TV, where he hired Armistead Maupin as a reporter.

In 1950, Jesse Helms played a critical role as campaign publicity director for Willis Smith in the US Senate campaign against a prominent liberal, Frank Porter Graham.

In 1952, Jesse Helms worked on the presidential campaign of Georgia Senator Richard Russell Jr.

From 1953 to 1960, Jesse Helms was executive director of the North Carolina Bankers Association.

Jesse Helms served two terms and earned a reputation as a conservative gadfly who "fought against everything from putting a median strip on Downtown Boulevard to an urban renewal project".

In 1960, Helms worked on the unsuccessful primary gubernatorial campaign of I Beverly Lake Sr.

Jesse Helms felt forced busing and forced racial integration caused animosity on both sides and "proved to be unwise".

In 1960, Jesse Helms joined the Raleigh-based Capitol Broadcasting Company as the executive vice-president, vice chairman of the board, and assistant chief executive officer.

Jesse Helms's editorials featured folksy anecdotes interwoven with conservative views against "the civil rights movement, the liberal news media, and anti-war churches", among many targets.

Jesse Helms referred to The News and Observer, his former employer, as the "Nuisance and Disturber" for its promotion of liberal views and support for African-American civil rights activities.

Jesse Helms is said to have referred to the university as "The University of Negroes and Communists" despite a lack of evidence, and suggested a wall be erected around the campus to prevent the university's liberal views from "infecting" the rest of the state.

Jesse Helms said the civil rights movement was infested by Communists and "moral degenerates".

Jesse Helms described the federal program of Medicaid as a "step over into the swampy field of socialized medicine".

Jesse Helms was at Capitol Broadcasting Company until he filed for the Senate race in 1972.

Jesse Helms announced his candidacy for a seat in the United States Senate in 1972.

Jesse Helms won the support of numerous Democrats, especially in the conservative eastern part of the state.

Galifianakis tried to woo Republicans by noting that Jesse Helms had earlier criticized Nixon as being too left-wing.

Jesse Helms spent a record $654,000, much of it going toward carefully crafted television commercials portraying him as a soft-spoken mainstream conservative.

Jesse Helms was elected as the first Republican senator from the state since 1903, before senators were directly elected, and when the Republican Party stood for a different tradition.

Jesse Helms was helped by Richard Nixon's gigantic landslide victory in that year's presidential election; Nixon carried North Carolina by 40 points.

Rather than get together with opponents to work out their differences, Jesse Helms preferred to stand his ground in defeat.

Jesse Helms quickly became a "star" of the conservative movement, and was particularly vociferous on the issue of abortion.

In 1974, in the wake of the US Supreme Court's decision in Roe v Wade, Helms introduced a constitutional amendment that would have prohibited abortion in all circumstances, by conferring due process rights upon every fetus.

Jesse Helms was a prominent advocate of free enterprise and favored cutting the budget.

Jesse Helms was a strong advocate of a global return to the gold standard, which he would push at numerous points throughout his Senate career; in October 1977, Helms proposed a successful amendment that allowed United States citizens to sign contracts linked to gold, overturning a 44-year ban on gold-indexed contracts, reflecting fears of inflation.

Jesse Helms offered an amendment that would have denied food stamps to strikers when the Senate approved increasing federal contributions to food stamp and school lunch programs in May 1974.

In January 1973, along with Democrats James Abourezk and Floyd Haskell, Helms was one of three senators to vote against the confirmation of Peter J Brennan as United States Secretary of Labor.

Jesse Helms proposed an act in 1974 that authorized the President to grant honorary citizenship to Soviet dissident Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.

Jesse Helms remained close to Solzhenitsyn's cause, and linked his fight to that of freedom throughout the world.

In 1975, as North Vietnamese forces approached Saigon, Jesse Helms was foremost among those urging the US to evacuate all Vietnamese demanding this, which he believed could be "two million or more within seven days".

Jesse Helms was not at first a strong supporter of Israel; for instance, in 1973 he proposed a resolution demanding Israel return the West Bank to Jordan, and, in 1975, demanding that the Palestinian Arabs receive a "just settlement of their grievances".

In 1977, Jesse Helms was the sole senator to vote against prohibiting American companies from joining the Arab League boycott of Israel, but that was primarily because the bill relaxed discrimination against Communist countries.

In 1982, Jesse Helms called for the US to break diplomatic relations with Israel during the 1982 Lebanon War.

Jesse Helms favored prohibiting foreign aid to countries that had recently detonated nuclear weapons: this was aimed squarely at India, but it affected Israel should it conduct a nuclear test.

Jesse Helms worked to support the supply of arms to the United States' Arab allies under presidents Carter and Reagan, until his views on Israel shifted significantly in 1984.

Jesse Helms delivered a Senate speech blaming liberal media for distorting Watergate and questioned if President Nixon had a constitutional right to be considered innocent until proven guilty following the April 1973 revelation of details relating to the scandal and Nixon administration aides resigning.

Jesse Helms advocated against illegal activities being condoned with concurrent "half-truth and allegations" being reported by the media.

Jesse Helms had four separate meetings with President Nixon in April and May 1973 where he attempted to cheer up the president and called for the White House to challenge its critics even as fellow Republicans from North Carolina criticized Nixon.

Jesse Helms opposed the creation of the Senate Select Committee to Investigate Campaign Practices in the summer of 1973, even as it was chaired by fellow North Carolina Senator Sam Ervin, arguing that it was a ploy by Democrats to discredit and oust Nixon.

Jesse Helms supported Ronald Reagan for the presidential nomination in 1976, even before Reagan had announced his candidacy.

Jesse Helms's contribution was crucial in the North Carolina primary victory that paved the way for Reagan's presidential election in 1980.

Later, Jesse Helms was not pleased by the announcement that Reagan, if nominated, would ask the 1976 Republican National Convention to make moderate Pennsylvania Senator Richard Schweiker his running mate for the general election, but kept his objections to himself at the time.

Jesse Helms vowed to campaign actively for Ford across the South, regarding the conservative platform adopted at the convention to be a "mandate" on which Ford was pledging to run.

However, he targeted Henry Kissinger after the latter issued a statement calling Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn a "threat to world peace", and Jesse Helms demanded that Kissinger embrace the platform or resign immediately.

Jesse Helms continued to back Reagan, and the two remained close friends and political allies throughout Reagan's political career, although sometimes critical of each other.

Jesse Helms would have made a gracious exit speech, cut a deal with the Ford forces to eliminate his campaign debt, made a minor speech at the Kansas City Convention later that year, and returned to his ranch in Santa Barbara.

Jesse Helms was a long-time opponent of transferring possession of the Panama Canal to Panama, calling its construction an "historic American achievement".

Jesse Helms claimed that Linowitz's involvement with Marine Midland constituted a conflict of interests, arguing that it constituted a bailout of American banking interests.

Jesse Helms filed two federal suits, demanding prior congressional approval of any treaty and then consent by both houses of Congress.

Jesse Helms rallied Reagan, telling him that negotiation over Panama would be a "second Schweiker" as far as his conservative base was concerned.

When Carter announced, on August 10,1977, the conclusion of the treaties, Jesse Helms declared it a constitutional crisis, cited the need for the support of United States' allies in Latin America, accused the US of submitting to Panamanian blackmail, and complained that the decision threatened national security in the event of war in Europe.

Jesse Helms threatened to obstruct Senate business, proposing 200 amendments to the revision of the United States criminal code, knowing that most Americans opposed the treaties and would punish congressmen who voted for them if the ratification vote came in the run-up to the election.

Jesse Helms began campaigning for re-election in February 1977, giving himself 15 months by the time of the primaries.

Jesse Helms campaigned almost exclusively on the issue of insurance rates and against "fat cats and special interests", in which he included Helms.

The Democratic National Committee targeted Jesse Helms, as did President Carter, who visited North Carolina twice on Ingram's behalf.

On January 3,1979, the first day of the new Congress, Jesse Helms introduced a constitutional amendment outlawing abortion, on which he led the conservative Senators.

An amendment proposed by Jesse Helms allowing voluntary prayer was passed by the Senate, but died in the House committee.

Jesse Helms joined the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, being one of four men critical of Carter who were new to the committee.

Leader of the pro-Taiwan congressional lobby, Jesse Helms demanded that the People's Republic of China reject the use of force against the Republic of China, but, much to his shock, the Carter administration did not ask them to rule it out.

Jesse Helms criticized the government over Zimbabwe Rhodesia, leading support for the Internal Settlement government under Abel Muzorewa, and campaigned along with Samuel Hayakawa for the immediate lifting of sanctions on Muzorewa's government.

Jesse Helms complained that it was inconsistent to lift sanctions on Uganda immediately after Idi Amin's departure, but not Zimbabwe Rhodesia after Ian Smith's.

Jesse Helms hosted Muzorewa when he visited Washington and met with Carter in July 1979.

Jesse Helms sent two aides to the Lancaster House Conference because he did not "trust the State Department on this issue", thereby provoking British diplomatic complaints.

In 1979, Jesse Helms was touted as a potential contender for the Republican nomination for the 1980 presidential election, but had poor voter recognition, and he lagged far behind the front-runners.

Jesse Helms was the only candidate to file for the New Hampshire Vice-Presidential primary.

Jesse Helms was one of three conservative candidates running for the nomination.

At the convention, Jesse Helms toyed with the idea of running for vice-president despite Reagan's choice, but let it go in exchange for Bush's endorsing the party platform and allowing Jesse Helms to address the convention.

Jesse Helms was the "spiritual leader of the conservative convention", and led the movement that successfully reversed the Republican Party's 36-year platform support for an Equal Rights Amendment.

Jesse Helms pledged to introduce an even stronger anti-busing bill as soon as Reagan took office.

The first six months of 1981 were consumed by numerous Foreign Relations Committee confirmation hearings, which were held up by Jesse Helms, who believed many of the appointees too liberal or too tainted by association with Kissinger, and not dedicated enough to his definition of the "Reagan program": support for South Africa, Taiwan, and Latin American right-wing regimes.

Jesse Helms, unsuccessfully, opposed the nominations of Caspar Weinberger, Donald Regan, and Frank Carlucci.

An opponent of the Food Stamp Program, Jesse Helms had already voted to reduce its scope, and was determined to follow this through as Agriculture Committee chairman.

Jesse Helms supported the gold standard through his role as the Agriculture Committee chairman, which exercises wide powers over commodity markets.

Jesse Helms warned repeatedly against costly farm subsidies as chairman.

Jesse Helms heavily opposed cutting food aid to Poland after martial law was declared, and called for the end of grain exports to the Soviet Union instead.

Jesse Helms voted against the 1983 budget: the only conservative Senator to have done so, and was a leading voice for a balanced budget amendment.

Jesse Helms co-sponsored the bi-partisan move in 1982 to extend drug patent duration.

Jesse Helms's support was key to the nomination of C Everett Koop as Surgeon General, by proposing lifting the age limit that would otherwise have ruled out Koop.

In 1981, Jesse Helms started secret negotiations to end an 11-year impasse and pave the way for desegregation of historically white and historically black colleges in North Carolina.

In 1983, Jesse Helms hired Claude Allen, an African American, as his press secretary.

In 1983, Jesse Helms led the 16-day filibuster in the Senate opposing the proposed establishment of Martin Luther King Day as a federal holiday.

Jesse Helms ended the filibuster in exchange for a new tobacco bill.

Jesse Helms then demanded that FBI surveillance tapes allegedly detailing philandering on King's part be released, although Reagan and the courts refused.

Jesse Helms immediately focused on escalating aid to the Salvadoran government in its civil war, and particularly preventing Nicaraguan and Cuban support for guerrillas in El Salvador.

Jesse Helms was assisted in pursuing the foreign policy realignment by John Carbaugh, whose influence The New York Times reported "[rivalled] many of [the Senate's] more visible elected members".

In El Salvador, Jesse Helms had close ties with the right-wing Salvadoran Nationalist Republican Alliance and its leader and death squad founder Roberto D'Aubuisson.

Jesse Helms alleged that the CIA had interfered in the Salvadoran election March and May 1984, in favor of the incumbent centre-left Jose Napoleon Duarte instead of D'Aubuisson, claiming that Pickering had "used the cloak of diplomacy to strangle freedom in the night".

Jesse Helms disclosed details of CIA financial support for Duarte, earning a rebuke from Barry Goldwater, but Jesse Helms replied that his information came from sources in El Salvador, not the Senate committee.

In 1982, Jesse Helms was the only senator who opposed a Senate resolution endorsing a pro-British policy during the Falklands War, citing the Monroe Doctrine, although he did manage to weaken the resolution's language.

Jesse Helms was steadfastly opposed to the Castro regime in Cuba, and spent much of his time campaigning against the lifting of sanctions.

Halfway through Reagan's term, Jesse Helms was talked about as a prospective presidential candidate in 1984 in case Reagan chose to stand down after his first term.

Jesse Helms pledged during the campaign that he would retain his chairmanship of the Agriculture committee.

In 1989, Jesse Helms hired James Meredith, most famous as the first African American ever admitted to the University of Mississippi, as a domestic policy adviser to his Senate office staff.

Meredith noted that Jesse Helms was the only member of the Senate to respond to his offer.

In 1989, Jesse Helms successfully lobbied for an amendment to the Americans with Disabilities Act, legislation protecting disability rights that exempted pedophilia, schizophrenia, and kleptomania from the conditions against which discrimination was barred.

In early 1986, Panamanian dissident Winston Spadafora visited Jesse Helms and requested that the Subcommittee on Western Hemisphere Affairs hold hearings on Panama.

In 1988, after Noriega was indicted on charges including drug trafficking, a former Panamanian consul general and chief of political intelligence testified to the subcommittee, detailing Panama's compiling of evidence on its political opponents in the United States, including Senators Jesse Helms and Ted Kennedy, with the assistance of the CIA and National Security Council.

Jesse Helms proposed that the government suspend the Carter-Torrijos treaties unless Noriega were extradited within thirty days.

In July 1986, after Rodrigo Rojas DeNegri was burned alive during a street demonstration against the dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet in Chile, Jesse Helms said that DeNegri and his companion Carmen Quintana Arancibia were "Communist terrorists" who had earlier been sighted setting fire to a barricade.

Jesse Helms responded to the disclosure by telling reporters that the Justice Department "want to intimidate me and harass me, and it's not going to work" and said that both the Justice Department and himself were aware he had "violated no rules of classification".

In 1987, Jesse Helms added an amendment to the Supplemental Appropriations Act, which directed the president to use executive authority to add HIV infection to the list of excludable diseases that prevent both travel and immigration to the United States.

Jesse Helms was "bitterly opposed" to federal financing for research and treatment of AIDS, which he believed was God's punishment for homosexuals.

Jesse Helms introduced an amendment to a 1987 spending bill that prohibited the use of federal tax dollars for any AIDS educational materials that would "promote or encourage, directly or indirectly, homosexual activities".

Jesse Helms spoke to 23 representatives; Helms refused to speak to Jeanne White, even when she was alone with him in an elevator.

In 1988, Jesse Helms convinced congress to implement a ban on federal funding for needle exchange programs, arguing that spending federal money on such programs was tantamount to "federal endorsement of drug abuse".

Thomas Farr, campaign manager for Jesse Helms, disavowed any knowledge of the dirty tricks, which was shown to be false when his hand written notes were discovered.

Jesse Helms aired a late-running television commercial titled "Hands" that showed a white man's hands crumpling up a rejection notice from a company that gave the job to a "less qualified minority"; some critics claimed the ad utilized subtextual racist themes.

Jesse Helms won the election with 1,087,331 votes to Gantt's 981,573.

The Senate Ethics Committee subsequently voted to investigate Jesse Helms for releasing the confidential document.

In 1999, Jesse Helms unsuccessfully attempted to block Moseley Braun's nomination to be United States Ambassador to New Zealand.

Republicans regained control of Congress after the 1994 elections and Jesse Helms finally became the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Jesse Helms was the first North Carolinian to chair the committee since Nathaniel Macon, a descendant of Martha Washington, in the first quarter of the 19th century.

In that role, Jesse Helms pushed for reform of the UN and blocked payment of the United States' dues.

Jesse Helms passed few laws of his own in part because of this bridge-burning style.

Jesse Helms tried to block the refunding of the Ryan White Care Act in 1995, saying that those with AIDS were responsible for the disease, because they had contracted it because of their "deliberate, disgusting, revolting conduct", and that the reason AIDS existed in the first place was because it was "God's punishment for homosexuals".

Jesse Helms claimed that more federal dollars were spent on AIDS than heart disease or cancer, despite this not being borne out by the Public Health Service statistics.

Jesse Helms reintroduced the bill without Titles III and IV, which detailed the penalties on investors, and it passed by 74 to 24 on October 19,1995.

For years after its passing, Jesse Helms criticized the corporate interests that sought to lift the sanctions on Cuba, writing an article in 1999 for Foreign Affairs, at whose publisher, the Council on Foreign Relations, drew Jesse Helms's ire for its softer approach to Cuba.

In 1996, Jesse Helms drew 1,345,833 to Gantt's 1,173,875.

Jesse Helms supported his former Senate colleague Bob Dole for president, while Gantt endorsed Bill Clinton.

The summer of 1997 saw Jesse Helms engage in a protracted, high-profile battle to block the nomination of William Weld, Republican Governor of Massachusetts, as Ambassador to Mexico: refusing to hold a committee meeting to schedule a confirmation hearing.

In January 1998, Jesse Helms endorsed a legislative proposal by the Cuban-American National Foundation to provide 100 million worth of food and medicine so long as Havana could promise the assistance would not be allocated to government stores or officials of the Communist Party.

Jesse Helms stated the proposal would hurt Castro's regime if he either accepted or rejected it and the proposal was endorsed by more than twenty senators from both parties.

Jesse Helms asserted the administration should have worked to develop strategies to undermine Castro and instead spent years "wasting precious time and energy on a senseless debate over whether to lift the Cuban embargo unilaterally".

Jesse Helms saw the Bush administration as "understanding of the nature" of Castro and his crimes and stated his hope that an American president would eventually be able to visit Cuba at a time when the latter country and the United States could welcome each other as friends and trading partners.

In May 2001, Jesse Helms cosponsored legislation with Connecticut Democrat Joe Lieberman granting 100 million in aid to both government critics and independent workers in Cuba during the period of the following four years and said the aim of the bill was to provide financial assistance to domestic opponents of the Cuban government so that they could continue their work.

Jesse Helms released a statement defending Bush, saying "it would be wise to consider the other salutary initiatives that the president is putting into force" before criticizing the decision and credited Bush with "taking a very tough line which is certain to make Fidel Castro squirm".

In January 1997, during the confirmation hearings for Secretary of State nominee Madeleine Albright, Jesse Helms stated President Clinton's first term had left adversaries of the United States in doubt of their resolve and that "a lot of Americans" were praying she would issue in a change during her tenure.

In September 1997, amid the Senate voting to repeal a 50 billion tax break for the tobacco industry, Jesse Helms joined Mitch McConnell and Lauch Faircloth in being one of three senators to vote against the amendment.

In remarks the following month, Jesse Helms stated the scandal had left him saddened for the United States and President Clinton's daughter Chelsea.

In March 1998, after the Senate Foreign Relations Committee voted to add Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic into the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Jesse Helms predicted the resolution would pass overwhelmingly in the full chamber and said the vote was a testament to "confidence in the democracies of Eastern Europe".

However, Jesse Helms was strident in his opposition and let it be known that any attempt to have the Senate ratify the Statute would be "dead on arrival" at the Foreign Relations Committee.

Jesse Helms introduced the American Service-Members' Protection Act, adopted by Congress in 2002 "to protect United States military personnel and other elected and appointed officials of the United States government against criminal prosecution by an international criminal court to which the United States is not party".

Jesse Helms added that he could not "recall another Cabinet-level nomination sent to this committee with so much ethical baggage attached to it".

An article published around the same time as the statement by Roll Call indicated Jesse Helms would prevent the nomination unless Moseley-Braun "amends for past slights" such as her opposition to the renewal of the emblem for the Daughters of the Confederacy.

Jesse Helms subsequently demanded documents relating to Moseley-Braun's ethical charges and delayed confirmation hearings until receiving them.

In 2000, Bono sought out Jesse Helms to discuss increasing American aid to Africa.

Jesse Helms insisted that Bono involve the international community and private sector, so that relief efforts would not be paid for by "just Americans".

Jesse Helms coauthored a bill authorizing $600 million for international AIDS relief efforts.

In 2002, Jesse Helms announced that he was ashamed to have done so little during his Senate career to fight the worldwide spread of AIDS, and pledged to do more during his last few months in the Senate.

Jesse Helms was a proponent in trying to dissolve the United States Agency for International Development.

In January 2001, Jesse Helms stated he would support an increase in international assistance on the condition that all future aid from the United States be provided to the needy by private charities and religious groups as opposed to a government agency, and endorsed abolishing the United States Agency for International Development and concurrently transferring its 7 billion in annual aid to another foundation which would give grants to private relief groups.

In 1994, after turning down requests for his papers to be left to an Ivy League university, he designated Wingate University as the repository of the official papers and historical items from his Senate career, where the Jesse Helms Center is based to promote his legacy.

Jesse Helms's health remained poor after he retired from the Senate in 2003.

Jesse Helms was later moved into a convalescent center near his home.

Jesse Helms died of vascular dementia during the early morning hours of July 4,2008, at the age of 86.

Jesse Helms is buried in Historic Oakwood Cemetery in Raleigh, North Carolina.

Jesse Helms said that Helms was willing to inflame racial resentment against African-Americans for political gain and dubbed Helms "the last prominent unabashed white racist politician in this country".

Early in his career, as news director for WRAL radio, Jesse Helms supported Willis Smith in the 1950 Democratic primary for the US Senate, against Frank Porter Graham, in a campaign that used racial issues in a divisive way, in order to draw conservative white voters to the polls.

When Smith won, Jesse Helms went to Washington as his administrative assistant.

Jesse Helms opposed busing, the Civil Rights Act, and enforcement of the Voting Rights Act.

Jesse Helms called the Civil Rights Act of 1964 "the single most dangerous piece of legislation ever introduced in the Congress", and sponsored legislation to either extend it to the entire country or scrap it altogether.

Jesse Helms reminded voters that he tried, with a 16-day filibuster, to stop the Senate from approving a federal holiday to honor Dr Martin Luther King Jr.

Jesse Helms was accused of being a segregationist by some political observers and scholars, such as USA Today DeWayne Wickham who wrote that Helms "subtly carried the torch of white supremacy" from Ben Tillman.

Jesse Helms never stated that segregation was morally wrong and expressed the belief that integration would have been achieved voluntarily but that it was forced by "outside agitators who had their own agendas".

Besides opposing civil rights and affirmative action legislation, Jesse Helms blocked many black judges from being considered for the federal bench, and black appointees to positions of prominence in the Federal Government.

Jesse Helms had a negative view of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people and LGBT rights in the United States.

Jesse Helms called homosexuals "weak, morally sick wretches" and tried to cut funding for the National Endowment for the Arts for supporting the "gay-oriented artwork of photographer Robert Mapplethorpe".

Jesse Helms was well known for his strong Christian religious views.

Jesse Helms played a leading role in the development of the Christian right, and was a founding member of the Moral Majority in 1979.

Jesse Helms helped found Camp Willow Run, an interdenominational Christian summer camp, sitting on its board of directors until his death, and was a Grand Orator of the Masonic Grand Lodge of North Carolina.

Equating leftism and atheism, Jesse Helms argued that the downfall of the US was due to loss of Christian faith, and often stated, "I think God is giving this country one more chance to save itself".

Jesse Helms believed that the morality of capitalism was assured in the Bible, through the Parable of the Talents.

Jesse Helms believed, writing in When Free Men Shall Stand, that "such utopian slogans as Peace with Honor, Minimum Wage, Racial Equality, Women's Liberation, National Health Insurance, Civil Liberty" are ploys by which to divide humanity "as sons of God".

Jesse Helms held honorary degrees from several religious universities including Bob Jones University, Campbell University, Grove City College, and Wingate University which he attended but did not receive a degree.