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Just to clarify my own post - it wasn't the news of Helms' demise that made my day - it was the previous video post, which portrayed a gay men's choir trying to confront the then-living senator with a cheerfully sung mesage of love. It was a very good example of out-classing your adversary. (It was also a rare example of a Michael Moore stunt that did not make me cringe.)
I don't blame anyone for thinking the world a better place without the kind of ignorance and proud bigotry Helms defiantly stood for. Unfortunately, the passing of one person doesn't in itself change much of anything at all, and, as Helms had slipped into dementia well before his death, it can't really be said that the level of intolerance is any different at all today as a result of his departure.
As for celebrating a death or not, well, I agree that shadenfreude is unseemly. Is his death tragic? I think the most tragic deaths are the ones in which a life ended without a person growing or achieving something. For all I know, Helms may have stood up for the underdog somewhere along the line. He did soften his stance on AIDS assistance to other countries. I hope he gained some perspective on race equality and gender issues in his post-senate years, but I have no way of knowing. (And the issue is clouded by his faculties having faded away slowly.) But he said and did things in his life that ensure his name is going to be synonymous with attitudes that are fast falling into well-deserved ignominy.
But, wise or foolish, rich or poor, we are all going to be equal someday.
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