Aw, this is really sweet. It truly does warm the cockles of my heart to see a U.S. Senator behaving with such sensitivity and aplomb…

Sen. Elizabeth Dole (R-NC) yesterday introduced an amendment that would have added the name of Jesse Helms to the title of the HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria bill that is before the Senate. Helms, who died eleven days ago, was the nation's most vociferous foe of federal funding for HIV/AIDS programs from the epidemic's beginning until he left the Senate.

The current title of the bill is the "Tom Lantos and Henry J. Hyde United States Global Leadership Against HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria Reauthorization Act of 2008."

If Dole's changes went into effect, I think it would be renamed something like "St. Jesse Helms Presents the Tom Lantos and Henry J. Hyde United States Global Leadership Against Tuberculosis, Malaria and Immoral Homosexual Scourge Disease," which kind of has a nice ring to it.

And you know what, if anybody deserves to be immortalized in an AIDS/HIV bill, it's Helms. Just look at his record of tireless work with homosexual issues…

Helms said that gays caused the AIDS epidemic and victimized Ryan White, threaten the survival of the American family, are in a battle against American values, and have the ultimate aim of having the American people accept "their perverted lifestyle."

Since Dole's proposition is almost certain to be laughed out of existence, maybe the legacy of Helms — who succumbed to multi-infarct dementia and was carried up to Heaven on wings of angels earlier this month — can be immortalized in some other way.