As moral dee-generates go, Arthur was a useful one.

Heeding the long-suppressed call of My Inner Shy Person, I have for some time been divesting myself of the mental archives acquired in several decades of political activism. But I'm glad others are out there to remind us of useful things. Mike Signorile, one of the resident gay guys at Sirius Radio, reminds us of another of Senator Jesse Helms' legacies (well, along with Dick Morris and Alex Castellanos, who cam up with the infamous "Hands" ad; Charlie Black, now one of McCain's chief advisers; and President Bush's chief speechwriter, who used to flack for Helms at the Foreign Relations Committee):

But let's not let history forget that a powerful gay man was instrumental to Jesse Helms, even as Helms was vilifying and demonizing gay men and allowing them and and many others to die throughout the 80s and 90s. Conservative, then-closeted, Republican political operative Arthur Finkelstein (pictured here in one of the only known photos of the guy) helped engineer Helms' racist campaign against African-American Charlotte Mayor Harvey Gantt in 1990, as Helms was vilifying gay sexuality, blocking AIDS funding, stalling prevention and attacking queer artists.

"Had Jesse Helms not had the handiwork of Finkelstein, who worked for Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and various right-wing senators, he might have lost that race. Instead, we had another decade of his antigay grip on the Republican Party, as he blocked HIV prevention measures and thousands more died.

"Finkelstein is today still working as a strategist for right-wing Republicans, as are many other closeted and not-so-closeted gay Republicans. Finkelstein was outed in 1996 in Boston magazine, and a few years ago he quietly got married to his partner in Massachusetts -- benefiting from the hard work of LGBT activists while he promoted and worked for a vile antigay crusader like Jesse Helms.

"Jesse Helms is dead but his legacy lives on. Republicans today similarly bash gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgender people in order to win elections -- maybe not so vociferously, maybe on different issues than those in the 80s and 90s, but no less opportunistically. And people like Arthur Finklelstein and many other gay Republicans work for them and endorse them.