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Barry Goldwater was a gay rights activist.

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anti-NAFTA Donating Member (900 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Feb-19-04 06:41 PM
Original message
Barry Goldwater was a gay rights activist.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/daily/may98/goldwater072894.htm

"At 85, after a life in politics spanning five decades (he retired from the Senate in 1987), Mr. Conservative has found himself an unlikely new career: as a gay rights activist. While that's not his sole pursuit – he returned to Capitol Hill yesterday to testify in favor of scenic overflights of the Grand Canyon – in recent years he's championed homosexuals serving in the military and has worked locally to stop businesses in Phoenix from hiring on the basis of sexual orientation. This month he signed on as honorary co-chairman of a drive to pass a federal law preventing job discrimination against homosexuals. The effort, dubbed Americans Against Discrimination, is being spearheaded by the Human Rights Campaign Fund, the influential gay lobbying organization. "

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nothingshocksmeanymore Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Feb-19-04 06:45 PM
Response to Original message
1. Barry Goldwater would shit twice at what the Bush family has redefined
as conservative. He was a real conservative. I may have disagreed with him but he was true to his own principles as a conservative.
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blondeatlast Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Feb-19-04 06:54 PM
Response to Reply #1
6. He was pretty much a social moderate, even a bit liberal at times.
His family is STILL the largest supporter of Planned Parenthood of Central and Northern Arizona.

In truth, he was conservative in the truest sense of the word; he wanted the government out of our lives.

He is probably rolling over over the Patriot Act.

If the MPA gets anywhere, I'll expect to see him rise out of the grave...

I do admire him with no apologies, and was honored to tell him so. He was well aware at the time that I wasn't in his party!
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nothingshocksmeanymore Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Feb-19-04 07:02 PM
Response to Reply #6
10. I'm well acquianted with his sister
Even had drinks with her a few times..she is quite friendly with my boss!
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PVnRT Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Feb-19-04 06:47 PM
Response to Original message
2. You don't have to be straight to shoot straight
One of his more famous quotes on the topic.
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kodi Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Feb-19-04 06:49 PM
Response to Original message
3. Quotes from Goldwater:
1st one is a personal fave:

"Every good Christian should line up and kick Jerry Falwell's ass."

"I don't have any respect for the Religious Right."

"A woman has a right to an abortion."

"The religious factions will go on imposing their will on others,"

"I am a conservative Republican," he wrote in a 1994 Washington Post essay, "but I believe in democracy and the separation of church and state. The conservative movement is founded on the simple tenet that people have the right to live life as they please as long as they don't hurt anyone else in the process."
In 1994 he told The Los Angeles Times, "A lot of so-called conservatives don't know what the word means. They think I've turned liberal because I,, believe a woman has a right to an abortion. That's a decision that's up to the pregnant woman, not up to the pope or some do-gooders or the Religious Right. It's not a conservative issue at all."
Goldwater, an Episcopalian, had theological differences with greedy TV preachers. "I look at these religious television shows," he said, "and they are raising big money on God. One million, three million, five million - they brag about it. I don't believe in that. It's not a very religious thing to do."

But Goldwater was also deeply worried about the Religious Right's long-term impact on his beloved GOP. "If they succeed in establishing religion as a basic Republican Party tenet," he told U.S. News & World Report in 1994, "they could do us in."

In an interview with The Post that same year, Goldwater
In a Sept. 15, 1981, Senate speech, Goldwater noted that Falwell's Moral Majority, anti-abortion groups and other Religious Right outfits were sometimes referred to in the press as the "New Right" and the "New Conservatism."

Responded Goldwater, "Well, I've spent quite a number of years carrying the flag of the 'Old Conservatism.' And I can say with conviction that the religious issues of these groups have little or nothing to do with conservative or liberal politics. The uncompromising position of these groups is a divisive element that could tear apart the very spirit of our representative system, if they gain sufficient strength."

Insisted Goldwater, "Being a conservative in America traditionally has meant that one holds a deep, abiding respect for the Constitution. We conservatives believe sincerely in the integrity of the Constitution. We treasure the freedoms that document protects....

"By maintaining the separation of church and state," he explained, "the United States has avoided the intolerance which has so divided the rest of the world with religious wars .... Can any of us refute the wisdom of Madison and the other framers? Can anyone look at the carnage in Iran, the bloodshed in Northem Ireland, or the bombs bursting in Lebanon and yet question the dangers of injecting religious issues into the affairs of state:"
Goldwater concluded with a waming to the American people. "The religious factions will go on imposing their will on others," he said, "unless the decent people connected to them recognize that religion has no place in public policy. They must learn to make their views known without trying to make their views the only alternatives...

"We have succeeded for 205 years in keeping the affairs of state separate from the uncompromising idealism of religious groups and we mustn't stop now," he insisted. "To retreat from that separation would violate the principles of conservatism and the values upon which the framers built this democratic republic."


http://www.concentric.net/~Tycho4/Goldwatr.htm


goldwater would consider the current gop crowd as fascists
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BradCKY Donating Member (325 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Feb-19-04 06:52 PM
Response to Reply #3
4. Indeed
People like Pat Buchanan and the like have my respect yet I disagree with most of their views. The difference is that they stay true to their own beliefs instead of the GOP line like many Senators/Congressmen(women) today.
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anti-NAFTA Donating Member (900 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Feb-19-04 06:54 PM
Response to Reply #4
7. Pat Buchanan is as anti-gay rights as you can get.
But he's respectable for not changing his views on trade and foreign policy to kiss Bush's ass.
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anti-NAFTA Donating Member (900 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Feb-19-04 06:53 PM
Response to Reply #3
5. That's weird.
I always thought his platform was 100% like Reagan since he was pretty much the father of that type of foreign policy. I wonder what Freepers would say about this.
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blondeatlast Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Feb-19-04 06:57 PM
Response to Reply #5
8. I suspect that the Freepers would tear him a new one.
As an Arizonan, I am well aware of his iconic status here. But even a cursory look into his life reveals him to be a conservative in the truest sense of the word.

Social issues? They would despise him.
Environment? The same--he was very concerned with conserving Arizona's wildlands.

As mentioned earlier, the Patriot Act must have him spinning.
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Mountainman Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Feb-19-04 06:58 PM
Response to Reply #3
9. He sounds like a Wiccan
the simple tenet that people have the right to live life as they please as long as they don't hurt anyone else in the process."
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anti-NAFTA Donating Member (900 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Feb-19-04 07:11 PM
Response to Reply #9
12. Except for the fact that he wanted to nuke Vietnam. eom
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Mountainman Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Feb-19-04 07:38 PM
Response to Reply #12
14. Then he didn't live up to his beliefs
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mike1963 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Feb-19-04 07:10 PM
Response to Original message
11. I wasn't aware of that part of AuH2O's position, but I actually voted for
him the first time I was elegible...guess it was 1963? Anyway the main reason I did so, shallow as it was, that I had chatted with him on "ham radio" a few times. He seemed to be an okay guy, and I was still under the Republican influence of my parents. I think I'm recalling K7UGO, anybody know fer sure? I threw out all my QSL cards 30 years ago when ham radio turned into CB.
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JohnnyFianna1 Donating Member (218 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Feb-19-04 07:28 PM
Response to Reply #11
13. You chatted with Barry Goldwater
Actually didn't he campaign to get us out of Vietnam and concentrate on "the larger enemy"?
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