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Fall is a special time of year for me as it is the time when there are three major sports all going on at the same time. Baseball is winding down with the playoffs and the World Series, Football is in full swing and basketball is right around the corner. It is a wonderful time of the year for a sports fan like myself.

The other night, I was watching the World Series when, between innings as I surfed the channels to avoid watching commercials, I came across some channels that we don't subscribe to but which were available on some kind of a weekend trial. As I scrolled through these channels, I came upon a documentary on Barry Goldwater, the five term Senator from Arizona and one time presidential candidate, that grabbed my attention to the point I missed the rest of what I later learned was a very exciting baseball game.

This documentary, entitled “Mr. Conservative, Goldwater on Goldwater” grabbed my attention first of all, because it was about a fellow native to Arizona and although I currently reside in Indiana, Arizona will always be my home. However, this particular documentary was especially interesting because it was about a man that had been a hero of mine growing up. Senator Goldwater ran for President in 1964, losing to Lyndon Johnson by a landslide but his motto, “In your heart you know he is right” had a particular impact on my young thinking.

I was a Freshman in high school during that campaign and although this was the second campaign I had followed, it was the first one where I really felt strongly for someone. In 1960, my father and therefore I, was strongly opposed to John Kennedy because he was Catholic, but we strongly supported Barry Goldwater because of the things that he stood for and I was being trained to stand for right without fear of the consequences.

Goldwater lost the election in 1964 with only 38.8 % of the people voting for him, but it was the title to his autobiography written a few years later, that pointed up the spirit that I admired in him. It was entitled, “With No Apologies” and I admired him for the fact that he could take the enormous humiliation of such an incredible defeat and not back down from principle, and of course his political positions were vindicated when Ronald Reagan was elected to the office of President of the United States by a similar landslide. You seldom hear it mentioned, but if there had not been the “burial of Barry”, there would never have been the “Reagan Revolution.”

A few years after the election of 1964, we had the opportunity to get to know some of the Goldwater family as his daughter, Joanne Ross and her family moved to Sedona, Arizona were we lived, and my sister was the Nanny for some of the Goldwater grandchildren, including CC who put together this documentary. I don't know why the name “Ross” was not used in the documentary by mother or daughter but that was their name when we knew them.

My sister told me that Joanne and her husband were going through a divorce and she was asked to come and live with the children during this time and she had the opportunity to minister to the children, even bringing them to Church, where at least one of the children made a profession of faith in Christ.

If Barry Goldwater was my great hero as a teenager, he was an even greater disappointment to me later on when I had the opportunity to get involved in the political process myself. In 1986 Evan Mecham upset the political world in Arizona by being the first man elected to be Governor who was not a part of the political machine that had run the State since territorial days. Needless to say, the “powers that be” were not going to stand for such and just a little over a year after he was elected, he was impeached and removed from office.

That miscarriage of justice aroused the spirit of “right at any cost” that had been instilled in me, at least in part, by Sen. Goldwater and the next thing I knew, I was the campaign manager for the man who defeated the Speaker of the House who initiated the impeachment. Later I was campaign manager for our county for Gov. Mecham as he ran for re-election and even though he did not win that election, I am proud of the fact that he did win our county.

Now the kicker in this is the fact that Barry Goldwater was the leader in the opposition against Evan Mecham and it was the same political machine that ousted Gov. Mecham that had supported Sen. Goldwater in all of his campaigns. The political corruption that traced all the way back to the first governor of the State, George W.P. Hunt, a man my father says was reputed to be a sodomite, had now finally been exposed and my hero led the charge. That was a tough pill to swallow. I recently talked to a long time friend who lives out there still and he told me that things are beyond imagination out there now.

Over the last years of his political career, Barry Goldwater was an outspoken opponent of anything Christian in government. Wesley Darby has literally been a lifelong friend of mine, loving to remind me every time I talk to him, that he held me as a baby, and he has been a pastor and political activist for close to 60 years in Arizona. He was involved in trying to put God back in our government 30 years before the “Moral Majority” came along. He was a personal friend and ardent supporter of Barry Goldwater in the early days, but he told me recently that when he invited Goldwater to speak to a group of pastors, they were told that they had no business in politics and should stay out of that arena. And Sen. Goldwater was consistently vocal in that position.

When Sandra Day O'Connor, another native of Arizona, was nominated to the Supreme Court in 1981, some in the Religious Right were concerned that she might be pro abortion. Jerry Falwell warned that "every good Christian should be concerned." And Sen. Goldwater, replied "Every good Christian should line up and kick Jerry Falwell's ass."

At one point later he told The Advocate, "I don't have any respect for the Religious Right. There is no place in this country for practicing religion in politics. That goes for Falwell, Robertson and all the rest of these political preachers. They are a detriment to the country."

He told U.S. News & World Report in 1994, that the religious right ". . .could do us in." In an interview with The Post that same year, Goldwater observed, "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 and make a religious organization out of it. If that ever happens, kiss politics goodbye."

The documentary, “Mr. Conservative, Goldwater on Goldwater” by CC Goldwater dealt quite at length with this issue, interviewing a Goldwater daughter who confessed to having had an illegal abortion when she was young and a Goldwater grandson who is a sodomite. They both praised Sen Goldwater for his open understanding of their situations and then the documentary went on to play sound bites where Sen. Goldwater had embraced both abortion and sodomy.

So the question begs to be answered, “How can we have a man who calls himself a conservative be so opposed to the principles of conservatism? The answer given in the documentary which I believe to be accurate is that abortion, sodomy and moral issues were not political issues in 1964 and so it was very consistent for Sen. Goldwater to oppose the right on moral issues.

It was Ronald Reagan who brought moral issues into political conservatism, not because of any great conviction on his part but for political expediency. We know that Reagan did not embrace the moral issues because of conviction by the fact that he never turned his hand the first time to do away with abortion, he had a son who is an open sodomite and he himself was divorced from his first wife while his second wife aided him in consulting with the witches over governmental policy. Some would argue that his hands were tied and that he could not do anything concerning the moral issues, but he had a tool called the “executive order” which has been used since Abraham Lincoln to do great mischief to the nation, that he failed to use. He could have issued executive order banning abortion and sodomy but he did not.

In truth, Ronald Reagan and Barry Goldwater were, in their lives, very similar men and their moral character is very consistent with what the National Republican Party has been since it's beginning with Abraham Lincoln. In fact, all three men were men of base character using religion only when needed for political expediency.

When the Moral Majority tried to take over the National Republican Party, it was embraced for political expediency, but the Party has been trying to find a way to distance itself from the Christian Right while keeping the voter base loyal to the party. I don't know if it is the political acumen of the Party or the stupidity of the Christian Right or both that has been able to accomplish this purpose, but for the past 26 years, the Christian Right has been the “trumpet section” for the Republican Party while the Republican Party has systematically destroyed whatever was left of our Constitutional Republic and transformed us into a nation of sodomites and baby killers. These people even go so far as to proclaim it our patriotic responsibility to try to enforce a government of sodomites and baby killers on Iraq and any other nation that won't accept it.

Perhaps the most telling part of the documentary “Mr. Conservative: Goldwater on Goldwater” was the fact that they interviewed a woman named Hillary Rodham Clinton who boasted that she was a “Goldwater Girl” in 1964 and she was very proud of it.

I could not help but wonder if CC Goldwater was helping to set up Hillary as the “true conservative,” the conservative of Barry Goldwater, hoping to drive a wedge between the political conservatives of the Republican Party and the religious conservatives?

Whatever the motives, it points up the utter stupidity of the Religious Right as it has been manipulated into believing that the conservative Republicans had a similar agenda to themselves. The Republican Party was begun by men who desired to drive Biblical Christianity from the face of the earth and the agenda has never changed. For the past 26 years, the Religious Right has been used, not to further the Kingdom of God, but to further the agenda of the very antichrist Republican Party. A careful look at what has actually taken place in the last 26 years since Ronald Reagan was elected President will clearly show that very little if anything has been done to advance the moral issues of the Christian Right but the agenda of the antichrist has taken quantum leaps. Not one thing has been done to curb the murder of babies. The sodomites have all but completely taken over. Divorce, drugs, cohabitation, and public nudity are all on the increase without so much as a whimper of protest from the White House. Evolution continues to be taught, unchallenged, and there is no prayer in our schools.

At the same time, many of our liberties have disappeared. Our national debt has spiraled completely beyond comprehension. Churches have been padlocked, or sold for taxes. Pastors who preach the Word of God have been jailed or otherwise persecuted. And it has been the conservatives who have done the bulk of the damage. As wicked as he was personally, Bill Clinton did not wage the war on our rights and liberties to the extent that the conservatives have.

As I already said, when I sat down to watch this documentary, “Mr. Conservative, Goldwater on Goldwater” I did so only to see something about a fellow native to Arizona. It really was not until after it was over and I began to ruminate on what I had seen that I realized I had seen an ominous report of the triumphs of the ungodly over those who name the name of Christ. I had listened to a little girl who was as mean as she was cute when she was young, who had grown up and was now defending her grandfather's rebellion against God and using that rebellion to rationalize her rebellion and that of an entire generation.

When it was all over, I wasn't “warm and fuzzy” for having seen someone from home, I had seen the account of a wicked man who had set himself against God. He was a man who wanted to be a ruler so he could take counsel, against the LORD, and against his anointed, saying, Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us. Psalms 2:2, 3

God help us.