Barry Goldwater was known for his conservatism. He was a former Air Force General and fighter pilot. He defended the John Birch Society, which advocates for the United States to pull out of the United Nations. He defended making social security voluntary, and he even suggested using nuclear weapons on Vietnam. And you won’t find me defending those policies. But what I do hope to convey to those of you willing to read on is that those principles I’ve described above are not the whole story. This is the story of Barry Goldwater after he retired from the Senate in 1987. This is the story of Barry Goldwater’s advocacy for gay rights.
After Mr. Conservative retired from the Senate, Barry Goldwater championed for the rights of gays and lesbians to serve in our nation’s military and worked in Phoenix to stop businesses from hiring based on someone’s sexual orientation. In 1994 Barry Goldwater signed on as Co-Chair of a drive to prevent job discrimination against homosexuals. The Human Rights Commission spearheaded that drive, Americans Against Discrimination.
Surprised? I was. According to Goldwater, “The big thing is to make this country, along with every other country in the world with a few exceptions, quit discriminating against people just because they're gay. You don't have to agree with it, but they have a constitutional right to be gay. And that's what brings me into it."
And just who was his Co-Chair? It was a democrat, Oregon Governor Barbara Roberts who strongly opposed Goldwater’s bid for the White House in 1964.
In 1992 he backed a Democrat for Congress over a Christian Conservative Republican, and the Democrat won. Later he rallied to support President Bill Clinton by calling a press conference and saying, "get off his back and let him be president."
All of a sudden Mr. Conservative didn’t seem so conservative. But had he changed or had the conservative movement changed? And what led to his advocacy of gay rights?
In a Washington Post interview from 1994 Goldwater said, "The first time this came up was with the question, should there be gays in the military?" Goldwater says. "Having spent 37 years of my life in the military as a reservist, and never having met a gay in all of that time, and never having even talked about it in all those years, I just thought, why the hell shouldn't they serve? They're American citizens. As long as they're not doing things that are harmful to anyone else. ... So I came out for it."
Goldwater has a gay grandson, Ty Ross. Ross is HIV positive and in a committed relationship. He and his boyfriend often visited Goldwater. Goldwater’s first wife founded Planned Parenthood of Arizona. One of his longtime friends was gay rights activist Charlie Harrison. Harrison recalled Goldwater’s speech at a recent gay rights fundraising dinner in which he received a standing ovation from the gay audience, "He was treated like God," Harrison marvels. "Like the Grand Canyon come to Phoenix." Goldwater’s wife Susan was a registered nurse and Director of a cancer and AIDS hospice.
As for that question on if Goldwater’s conservatism changed or did the conservative movement change, Barry Goldwater would claim the latter. "What I was talking about was more or less 'conservative,' " Goldwater recalls, saying he was smeared by the people around President Johnson – "the most dishonest man we ever had in the presidency." Goldwater continues: "The oldest philosophy in the world is conservatism, and I go clear back to the first Greeks. ... When you say 'radical right' today, I think of these moneymaking ventures by fellows like Pat Robertson and others who are trying to take the Republican Party away from the Republican Party, and make a religious organization out of it. If that ever happens, kiss politics goodbye."
Barry Goldwater was always quick to offer you his opinion. He once remarked that JFK would have made a good president if he had lived. He considered him a friend who just happened to look at politics from a different perspective. Goldwater never forgave President Nixon for Watergate and refused to even attend Nixon’s funeral. Goldwater often remarked on Senator Bob Dole’s temper, "I said one day that Dole had a temper, and he got madder than hell. He has one. He has a mean one."
But it may be the connection between Barry Goldwater and Hillary Rodham Clinton that amazes most people. Yes, Hillary was a vocal Goldwater supporter in 1964. And Goldwater often mused that Hillary would make for a better President than Bill Clinton, "If he'd let his wife run business, I think he'd be better off. ... I just like the way she acts. I've never met her, but I sent her a bag of chili, and she invited me to come to the White House some night and said she'd cook chili for me. Someday, maybe." Goldwater did not, however, support Hillary’s health care initiative in the early 90’s.
Barry Goldwater suffered a stroke in 1996 and was diagnosed with Alzheimer's Disease in 1997. Barry Goldwater died on May 29, 1998 and he was a “true conservative.” Before he died he was able to achieve a lifelong dream – hearing a Democrat, President Bill Clinton, say in his State of the Union Address that the ‘era of big government was over.’ He never took a position on abortion, aside from saying "Well, I didn't have one. It wasn't an issue." Goldwater was anti-communism and pro-small government.
And he was pro-gay rights.
Presidential historian Haynes Johnson said, “I mean, the idea that Barry Goldwater came out for pro-choice so strongly, for gay and lesbian rights, and the difference between the social conservatives of today and the Goldwater conservatives of 1964 are just light years apart.”
From Badpuppy …
The Human Rights Campaign mourned the death today of former U.S. senator and Republican presidential candidate Barry Goldwater, a staunch defender of individual liberty and equality for gay Americans.
"Barry Goldwater envisioned an America where equal rights and liberty extend to all people. He exemplified honorable conservative principles such as respecting individual rights. Many of today's right-wing politicians, who mistakenly call themselves conservatives, can learn a lot about true conservatism by studying Barry Goldwater," said HRC Executive Director Elizabeth Birch
In remembering Barry Goldwater, I choose to recall his statement from an op-ed piece following his retirement from the Senate. "It's time America realized that there was no gay exemption in the right to `life, liberty and the pursuit to happiness' in the Declaration of Independence. Job discrimination against gays -- or anybody else – is contrary to each of these founding principles,"
You can read a transcript of Barry Goldwater’s commentary entitled “Ban on Gays is Senseless: Attempt to Stall the Inevitable” at http://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs.cmu.edu/user/scotts/bulgarians/barry-goldwater.html, in which he says “The conservative movement, to which I subscribe, has as one of its basic tenets the belief that government should stay out of people's private lives. Government governs best when it governs least - and stays out of the impossible task of legislating morality. But legislating someone's version of morality is exactly what we do by perpetuating discrimination against gays.”
Cites:
The Washington Post and The Washington Post
RS Levinson
PBS.org
Badpuppy
WaPo & LATimes
American Politics.com
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