Remember when Senator Jesse Helms was a "threat to our freedoms?"

We're hearing so much these days from journalists and academics about the need to "respect the religious feelings of others."

It's hard to believe that just a few years back, many of these same journalists and academics pilloried North Carolina Senator Jesse Helms when he spoke out against public funding for Piss Christ and what many people saw as its blasphemy.

All Helms was advocating was public condemnation of Piss Christ and the removal of public funds to pay for such "works of art." That may be why those journalists and academics felt free to pillory him. It wasn't like he was threatening them with physical harm.

You may be interested in what Senator Helms said on the Senate floor on May 18, 1989. From the Congressional Record:

Mr. HELMS. Mr. President, the Senator from New York is absolutely correct in his indignation and in his description of the blasphemy of the so-called artwork. I do not know Mr. Andres Serrano, and I hope I never meet him. Because he is not an artist, he is a jerk.

#20. Let us examine exactly what this bird did to get $15,000 of the taxpayers' money through the so-called National Endowment for the Arts. If they have no more judgment than that, it ought to be abolished and all funds returned to the taxpayer. What this Serrano fellow did, he filled a bottle with his own urine and then stuck a crucifix down there - Jesus Christ on a cross. He set it up on a table and took a picture of it.

#21. For that, the National Endowment for the Arts gave him $15,000, to honor him as an artist.

#22. I say again, Mr. President, he is not an artist. He is a jerk. And he is taunting the American people, just as others are, in terms of Christianity. And I resent it. And I do not hesitate to say so.

#23. I am not going to call the name that he applied to this work of art.

#24. In naming it, he was taunting the American people. He was seeking to create indignation. That is all right for him to be a jerk but let him be a jerk on his own time and with his own resources. Do not dishonor our Lord. I resent it and I think the vast majority of the American people do. And I also resent the National Endowment for the Arts spending the taxpayers' money to honor this guy.

#25. This program, supported by the National Endowment, is administered by the Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art. They call it SECCA. I am sorry to say it is in my home State.

#26. After Mr. Serrano's selection, this photograph and some of his other works were exhibited in several cities around the country with the approval and the support of the National Endowment.

#27. Horse feathers. If we have sunk so low in this country as to tolerate and condone this sort of thing, then we become a part of it.

#28. The question is obvious. On what conceivable basis does anybody who would engage in such blasphemy and insensitivity toward the religious community deserve to be honored? The answer to that is: he does not. He deserved to be rebuked and ignored because he is not an artist. Anybody who would do such a despicable thing - and get $15,000 in tax money for it - well, it tells you something about the state of this Government and the way it spends the money taken from the taxpayer.

Interesting reading, isn't it?

Liberal and leftist journalists and academics told us Helms was a great "threat to our freedoms."

Now the same crowd wants us to show respect for "the religious feelings of others."

Is anyone fooled?