Madison, as a liberal oasis, also has a gay-friendly reputation. Our congresswoman, Tammy "Comrade" Baldwin, is a lesbian. My State Representative, Mark Pocan, is also gay. Given these prominent members of the community, I was surprised to see who OutReach, Madison's Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Center, chose to be the keynote speaker at their upcoming awards banquet: Ed Thompson.

For those of you unfamiliar with Wisconsin politics, Ed Thompson is the head of the state Libertarian party and is the brother of former Governor Tommy Thompson. I think most people believe that liberals are the only ones looking out for homosexuals. It's nice to see someone like Ed Thompson out there now. He's a throwback to the conservative ideas of Barry Goldwater. Too many people only know Goldwater as the guy who got his ass kicked in 1964, partly because of the infamous "Daisy ad". They don't know the man who:

After his retirement, in 1987, Goldwater described the conservative Arizona Governor Evan Mecham as "hardheaded" and called on him to resign, and two years later stated the Republican Party had been taken over by a "bunch of kooks." In a 1994 interview with the Washington Post the retired Senator said, "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."

In the 1990s he became more controversial because of statements that aggravated many social conservatives. He endorsed Democrat Karan English in an Arizona congressional race, urged Republicans to lay off Clinton over the Whitewater scandal, and criticized the military's ban on homosexuals: "Everyone knows that gays have served honorably in the military since at least the time of Julius Caesar." He also said, "You don't have to be straight to be in the military; you just have to be able to shoot straight." He acknowledged, however, that in 37 years of military and reserve service he had not personally known any openly homosexual service members. In 1996 he told Bob Dole, who mounted his presidential campaign with luke-warm support from hard-line conservatives, "We're the new liberals of the Republican Party. Can you imagine that?"

The classic conservative moment, as espoused by the likes of Goldwater and Ronald Reagan, was about getting government out of our pocketbooks and out of our private lives. It's refreshing to see an organization like OutReach recognize that support can come from the Right as well as the Left. It's a little thing, but maybe it'll stop people from automatically assuming I'm a racist or a homophobe simply because I refuse to vote for whatever candidate has a "D" behind their name.