Hosting such events, directed at pastors, raised some concerns about who was paying for all this. The Texas Baptist fundamentalist convention executive director was featured at the original meeting. Rumors abounded that the moneybags behind the meetings had a hidden agenda. Bo Pilgrim, of Pilgrim's Pride Chicken, was one of the rumored supporters. He wanted Perry because he feared the prospect of new disability laws that would impact his industry. He had caused quite a stir in Austin when he handed out big bucks in the building where the legislators meet. This caused such a stir that a new law was passed to prevent this from happening again.

The Texas Freedom Network, www.tfn.org, June 23, 2005, did the research on the project and came up with the list of a handful of extremely conservative donors. Along with Pilgrim, also listed was a Don O'Neal, who is a beer distributor from Colleyville. Since the meeting was full of fundamentalist Baptist pastors, one might raise the question about such a connection. Fundamentalists in Texas are well known for their guilt-by-association.

Baptists have a rich history in the Temperance Movement. Churches in our area used to typically place on the church calendar TANE, known as Texas Alcohol and Narcotics Education. The history of many Baptist pastors' connection with anti-drinking movements is legendary. Most Baptist churches have the standard covenant that states that the church members agree to abstain from the use or selling of alcoholic beverages. The fact that O'Neal helped foot the bill for the plush hotel and banquet does not appear to have mattered much. It reminded me of a couple of other beer connections.

When moderate Baptists were still countering fundamentalists in the Southern Baptist Convention for positions of leadership, an interesting document surfaced. It was a meeting in which fundamentalist Baptist leaders were present with the leaders of the Coors family. Holly Coors and her family are deeply connected to the Religious Right. I recall a recent article about Promise Keepers in which the headlines read that Coors bought a round for the brethren. Russ Bellant wrote THE COORS CONNECTION, in 1988, exposing this interesting liaison between the Coors family and the religious right. Bellant has ties in the old German family with racists and anti-Semitic connections. While Joe Coors was on the Board of Regents at the University of Colorado, he was distributing John Birch Society literature according to Bellant. Moderate Baptists shouted foul over this connection, but there appeared to be little concern in the Convention. Earlier fundamentalists had raised quite a stir over the fact that a Baptist seminary president led the invocation at the opening of a beer distributorship.

Religious right Baptists did not show concern over the Coors connection nor has there been any mention of John McCain's connection to beer. His wife, according to accounts, helped fund his move into the neighborhood that set him up for the Senate. She supposedly helped fund much of the early attempts to enter government. The fact that she is a member of a Baptist church in Phoenix, and enjoys the lifestyle of the rich and famous from the sell of alcohol, does not appear to be an issue.

It is interesting that many fundamentalists are now willing to go on record as defying the IRS to publicly support a candidate like McCain who has this beer connection. It might be that these Baptists see McCain as the lesser of two evils - or more and more Baptists are drinking beer. Probably both are true.