The religious factions that are growing throughout our land are not using their religious clout with wisdom. They are trying to force government leaders into following their position 100%. If you disagree with these religious groups on a particular moral issue, they complain, they threaten you with a loss of money or votes or both. . . . Just who do they think they are? And from where do they presume to claim the right to dictate their moral beliefs to me? And I am even more angry as a legislator who must endure the threats of every religious group who thinks it has some god-granted right to control my vote on every roll call in the Senate. I am warning them today: I will fight them every step of the way if they try to dictate their moral convictions to all Americans in the name of "conservatism."
What godless commie do you think uttered those words? Why, it was none other than Senator Barry Goldwater, the "moral founder of the Reagan revolution," on the occasion of his retirement from the Senate in 1987.
Read the rest of Christopher Hitchens' recent opinion piece from The Wall Street Journal.
UPDATE: Another notorious pinko, George F. Will, recently published a similar piece in The Washington Post.