Position Paper: Marlboro Boycott

effective tobacco advocate. Philip Morris would not fund a
KKK member, no matter how advantageous the person was on
tobacco issues. Helms is an extremist and a bigot. Philip
Morris must weigh these factors along with the economic ones.
Philip Morris's funding of Helms, on such a massive scale,
translates into genuine credibility for his hateful agenda.
f. What's the big deal of Philip Morris's $21,100 worth of campaign contributions to Helms? Didn't Helms raise $16,000,000
during his last Senate re-election campaign in 1984?
It is true that Philip Morris has contributed less than
1% of Helms's total campaign revenues. However, our call to
boycott Marlboro is symbolic of the need for Philip Morris and
other corporations to stop providing concrete encouragement to
such a resolute hatemonger. Helms is an extremist, and is
undeserving of any deference owing to his position as a U.S.
Senator. He is opposed to any and all AIDS education
measures. He deploys filibusters on the Senate floor to block
effective responses to stem the AIDS epidemic. Helms has
never supported a single piece of legislation to advance
effective responses to AIDS, whether educational, or
treatment- or prevention-oriented.
Since 1986, Helms has had 29 chances to vote on issues
that directly affect the lives of lesbians, gays and people
with HIV. He has voted wrong each time. On 8 votes, Helms
has blocked efforts to provide AIDS information materials
specifically targeted to prevent HIV infection. On 4 votes,
Helms tried to invoke mandatory HIV testing.
On January 13, 1990, Helms announced his reelection
campaign for this year's May 8, 1990 North Carolina Republican
Primary, and November 6, 1990 General Election. At his
kickoff press conference, Helms tried to portray himself as
the savior of heterosexuals by invoking his common technique
of vilifying gay men and lesbians, decrying us as "disgusting
people."
But as the daily Charlotte (N.C.) Observer stated in a
January 18, 1990 editorial:
"([Sen. Helms ' s ] choice of that
description Saturday reminds us again that
Sen. Helms is not only mean-spirited, but that
he relishes being mean-spirited. He gleefully
flaunts his mean-spiritedness. He glories in
being mean-spirited.
"Maybe Jesse Helms can no more help being
mean-spirited than a homosexual can help being
homosexual, so we won't describe him as a
' disgusting person. ' We would suggest,
however, that anyone who takes such joy in

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