RUSH: Here’s another example of how this defamation continues and the lies and the distortions. Chris Cuomo, who is the host on CNN’s Special Report, this is last night, he interviewed the lieutenant governor of Indiana, Sue Ellspermann. He said, “Lieutenant governor, why did you make this law? What is the reason behind this law?” Why did you stinking Nazis do it? He didn’t say that, but based on the tweet from the babe at the National Bureau of Labor statistics, this is what they think. So here’s what she said.
ELLSPERMANN: It has a lot to do with the Hobby Lobby law because of Obamacare, and as that unfolded we realized here in the state of Indiana that we did not have the state protection that paralleled the federal protections for religious freedom, and we’re a state that really values those First Amendment rights.
RUSH: Does anybody remember what Hobby Lobby was about? Would you tell me? I want to see if you do remember. (interruption) Okay. Hm-hm. Hm-hm. That’s right. Way to go. Way to go. Way to. What the Hobby Lobby was all about was, Hobby Lobby is owned and run and operated by Christians and they do not believe in abortion, and Obamacare was mandating that they pay for abortifacients for their employees. In other words, Obamacare was mandating the people at Hobby Lobby pay their female employees for the ability to induce abortion.
And they said: We’re not gonna do it. If you want to have an abortion, pay for it yourself.
So the Regime jumped right on ’em and said, “What do you mean? The law is the law. To hell with your religion. The law is the law. And if your female employees or anybody want to induce an abortion, you gotta make it available in your health care,” and Hobby Lobby won the case at the Supreme Court. And what she’s saying here, we realized when that started happening, we don’t have the same kind of protections in Indiana. We wanted to double down on ’em.
All that everybody recognizes here is that religious people in this country are being ganged up on. There’s no denying that, because they are a majority, and, as such, they are automatically considered to be oppressors. If you doubt me, listen to this next bite. This is what Cuomo said after Sue Ellspermann’s answer.
CUOMO: I’m wondering if we are being open and honest about what motivated this law. You say, well, it’s pushing for religious freedom. The original law was designed to protect religious minorities, Native Americans, from smoking peyote, you know, the Amish for having to put an LED light on their carriages. You’re now empowering the majority, businesses, big groups, largely Christians, and that is going to be a very different impact.
RUSH: Exactly. Exactly what I told you yesterday, exactly why these people are the enemy. They are the majority, and majorities, when the liberals are not in them, are unjust and they’re immoral and they’re not to be permitted. They are to be destroyed. When the left is not in the majority that everybody’s talking about, that majority is automatically an oppressor, it discriminates, it’s mean-spirited, it’s radical, it’s extreme, it’s all these things. And so he’s saying to the lieutenant governor, “Well, peyote, Native Americans.” The fact that they were a minority had nothing to do with peyote being exempted from the law.
It was all about their religion. It had nothing to do with the fact they’re Native Americans. And the Amish, LED, had nothing to do with the fact that they’re a minority. It was all to do with their religious belief. No different here. Christians, these people being discussed, do not believe in gay marriage. They do not believe that homosexual marriage is legit and they don’t want to be forced to have to honor it. No different than the Indians, “Hey, you can’t deny me my peyote. That’s part of my religious belief.” And Clinton signed into law praising it and praising God-d and all of this.
Chris Cuomo comes along with his tiny little closed mind: There’s no way a majority can be discriminated against. It’s not possible. Majorities do the discriminating. Majorities are the oppressors. You’re empowering a majority. Don’t you understand what you’re doing? You can’t discriminate against a majority. You can’t discriminate against white people. You can’t discriminate against Christians, because they’re the majority.
This is exactly what they want everybody to believe. I told you yesterday I read some things about this. I wanted to get other points of view on this last night, so I found a couple of posts at The Corner, National Review. Here’s an excerpt, and I’m sorry, this printed, but it did not print the author. The second one is Charles C. W. Cook. But I’m sorry, I wish I knew who wrote this. I can go back and look and find it. This just an excerpt.
“So what’s really going on here? A toxic combination of anti-Christian bigotry and sexual revolution radicalism. It is simply uninformed and bigoted to believe that Christians are somehow lurking in the shadows, ready to deny food, shelter, and basic services to their gay fellow citizens — blocked from such vicious actions only by the strong arm of the state. In my entire life as an Evangelical, I’ve never met a fellow Christian who wouldn’t gladly serve a gay customer.
“If there are exceptions to that nearly-universal rule, they are so marginal (and marginalized) in the Christian community that they’re irrelevant not only to Christendom but also to the body politic. But the Left, ever-vigilant against group-based slights on behalf of favored constituencies, is only too eager to label orthodox Christians as threats to the public. This bigotry has a purpose. It serves to demonize the last significant constituency standing in the way of sexual revolution radicalism.”
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: I’m pretty sure, folks, that it’s accurate to say that not a single business has gotten away with discriminating against any customers thanks to the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. New Mexico has their own version of the Indiana law. It did not stop that photographer. It did not let that photographer refuse to photograph a gay wedding. She lost her business. Now, in all of Santa Fe, New Mexico, do you think a gay couple could have found a photography studio that would have agreed to photograph their wedding?
Odds are they could have.
Why did they target what they obviously knew would be a place that wouldn’t? Well, to make an example out of ’em, but also to intimidate and frighten any other opposition to gay marriage. The photographer in New Mexico was not intrinsic. Her point was not that she didn’t discriminate against gays, but she didn’t believe in gay marriage because of her religion. She felt it immoral if she were to participate in it. Her business was shut down. She lost her business.
The same thing happened in Colorado to a couple. I think it was a couple that owned a little bakery. The same. You know in Denver, Colorado, do you think a gay couple could find a baker to bake their wedding cake for ’em? Hell, head to whatever their Publix is out there. Just do it. Nope. They had to find a bakery where they knew the owners would refuse to do it on religious grounds and make hay. They lost their bakery. They lost their business.
That was the purpose. The intimidation was such that other customers were afraid to be seen patronizing the business for fear that they would be thought of as also being discriminatory against gay marriage. They lost their clientele simply on the basis of intimidation, and that’s the objective here. So that’s why the real question here is: When did all this hatred and bigotry for Christians begin? When did the left’s discrimination against Christianity and their hatred for Christianity start?
And why is it okay? Why is it promoted and justified? I told you why, and Chris Cuomo just confirmed it. They are considered a majority, and as such they are automatically oppresses of minorities. In the left’s world, every majority that they are not in is an oppressive, mean-spirited, extremist bunch of people. And they have to be taken out. Now, let me conclude reading this post from the evangelical at National Review Online on The Corner.
“This bigotry,” the kind I just described, “has a purpose. “It serves to demonize the last significant constituency standing in the way of sexual revolution radicalism. After all, unless you demonize your opposition, the general public will have little appetite for forcing Christians to pay for abortion pills, forcing Christian groups to open up to atheist leadership,” as the Episcopal Church did, “or forcing Christian bakers or photographers to help celebrate events they find morally offensive.”
In other words, they had to demonize these people. They had to demonize these businesses. Unless you demonize your opposition, the general public is not even gonna care. The general public in and of itself is not gonna rise up and demand that these businesses serve or participate in whatever the gay couples are demanding. They have to be demonized first. And when the demonization starts, nobody wants to be on the side of the person being demonized, because it’s quite obvious you’re gonna be destroyed.
So if you happen to be a customer of the bakery that refused to bake a cake for the gay wedding, you’re gonna stop going after you see what happens to that business. Because you don’t want to be seen going in there, because then you’re gonna become a target. And this is how they intimidate and scare, basically scare and frighten people into not standing up for what they really believe. This is how they get people who believe in things to shut up and stand down, and it’s what the evangelical writer here at National Review Online, David French, is calling “sexual revolution radicalism.”
“After all,” he says, “there’s no clamor for requiring Kosher delis to stock pork or requiring gay lawyers to represent the Westboro Baptist Church.” It’s only working one way here. “While RFRAs protect people of all faiths, from peyote-smoking Native Americans to Bible-toting florists, the Left’s outrage is narrowly targeted — against the Christian people whose livelihoods they seek to ruin, whose consciences they seek to appropriate, and whose organizations they seek to disrupt.
“#BoycottIndiana isn’t a cry for freedom. It’s nothing more than an online mob, seeking to bully those it hates.” That’s David French, an evangelical writing at NRO. Now, the next piece from National Review is Charles C. W. Cook, and he has a rather lengthy post here. “Corporations Can’t Have Consciences Unless They Oppose Mike Pence.” Now, this a fantastic take, too. “Watching the protests against Indiana’s new religious freedom law this week, I have been struck by something rather interesting: namely, by how abundantly happy people who are usually critical of corporations have been to recruit them to their side in this case.
“Reporting on the ‘backlash’ on Friday, CNBC recorded that: ‘Big corporations were among the loudest critics. Columbus, Indiana-based Cummins, the world’s largest diesel engine maker, opposed the new law in strong terms. “Cummins believes it’s bad for business and bad for Indiana and sends the message that the state is unwelcoming,” a Cummins spokesman said. “We are a global company in a competitive environment and it could hinder our ability to attract and retain top talent.”‘
“Elsewhere, the IndyStar confirmed that: ‘A number of companies, organizations, athletes and other high-profile voices have expressed strong opinions to Indiana Gov. Mike Pence signing the controversial “religious freedom” bill into law last week.’ In the Washington Post, meanwhile, Phillip Bump noted that: ‘since the the [sic] bill was signed last week, businesses like the NCAA and Apple have expressed similar concerns. These corporate protests were noted and praised, on social media and beyond.”‘ But hold one moment! Who exactly ‘has expressed similar concerns’?
“Who has been ‘among the loudest critics’? What has ‘signaled its intentions to boycott Indiana’? Who has ‘expressed strong opinions’? Who has ‘lined up to boycott the state in response’? We were told at the time of Hobby Lobby that companies can’t have consciences. We were told that they can’t have feelings.” We were told they’re not even people! “We were told that they can’t corporately opine on moral or legal questions as might an individual, and in consequence they can’t be worthy of praise or admonition.
“What, one wonders, has changed? It couldn’t be, could it, that liberals are opposed to the idea that corporations are entities that are capable of holding opinions and taking political stands … until they are needed in a fight that they care about?” And then when a corporation happens to agree on what the left is talking about, then they’re great people! Then a corporation is people! Then a corporation does have a conscience. Then a corporation does have morality. When it’s on the side of the left.
“In political circles, it is common to hear it asserted that in Citizens United (2010) the Supreme Court invented a couple of legal principles from whole cloth, and that these decisions now represent a threat to American democracy. Those are: that ‘corporations are people’…” Prior to Citizens United, corporations weren’t people! They were evil entities, like Halliburton. And they pollute and they destroy and they poison and they kill. The second thing that really sent ’em off the loop was “that corporate speech is protected by the First Amendment.”
They don’t have free speech. They’re not people!
Remember Elizabeth Warren? “Back in 2012, Elizabeth Warren caused something of a stir when she slammed Mitt Romney for his (correct) observation that corporations do not pay taxes, people do: ‘After all, Mitt Romney’s the guy who said corporations are people. No, Governor Romney, corporations are not people. People have hearts. They have kids. They get jobs. They get sick. They thrive. They dance. They live. They love. And they die. And that matters. That matters. That matters because we don’t run this country for corporations, we run it for people.'”
Remember that?
Corporations are not people. Romney, you’re an idiot! They don’t have hearts. They don’t love. They don’t help. They don’t protect. They don’t care. Obama has used identical language in selling ideas and mobilizing his base to hate corporations. “Adam Liptak observed in the New York Times last week: ‘Liberals used to love the First Amendment. But that was in an era when courts used it mostly to protect powerless people like civil rights activists and war protesters. These days, a provocative new study says, there has been a “corporate takeover of the First Amendment.”
“‘The assertion is backed by data, and it comes from an unlikely source: John C. Coates IV, who teaches business law at Harvard and used to be a partner at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, the prominent corporate law firm. “Corporations have begun to displace individuals as the direct beneficiaries of the First Amendment,” Professor Coates wrote. The trend, he added, is “recent but accelerating.”‘” They don’t like any of this, you see. So, “why are we being told that ‘companies’ are taking a stand against Governor Pence?
“If companies do not have hearts or opinions,” if companies are not people, if they don’t care — if all they do is kill and maim and poison and pollute — then how in the world can they take a stand like this supporting the left? “Why the lazy language? Second, I can only presume that all of those who oppose longstanding legal precedent in this area would remain entirely happy if Pence and the Indiana legislature decided to use the power of the government to silence Cummins, Angie’s List, Apple, and any other business…?”
What if Pence decided, in the face of all this corporate opposition, to act like the left does toward corporations? Start insulting them and denying them ability to do any of this because they’re not people! What would the left say? The left would say, “No, no, no! Corporations, all of a sudden, have become people. Corporations, all of a sudden, have a conscience. Corporations are the greatest thing on earth in Indiana now. Corporations, they do morality right, they do justice, they’re doing everything great! They’re wonderful! They got people and they care and they live and they work and they die and they don’t kill and they don’t maim and they don’t poison anymore.”
At least this week in Indiana.
Next week, it’s gonna be a different matter.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: We’ve also been told that corporations cannot donate to political campaigns or candidates ’cause they’re not people. I mean, you remember Citizens United, the left literally went insane when that law — and they’re still insane over it. Corporations are hated, reviled, and despised. You look at the average Democrat enemy list and the top 10 things on it are gonna be businesses, industries, Big Pharma, Big Retail, Big Oil, Big Tobacco. They despise ’em. And then Citizens United came out granting them the right to First Amendment protections and political campaign access, and they literally went batty, until Indiana came along. Now they love ’em.
Now corporations are the greatest things, Angie’s List, they love ’em, Cummins, they love ’em, NCAA, they love ’em. Even though the NCAA last week was exploiting student athletes and using them as slaves. Last week, the NCAA, basketball, football, you name it, those student athletes — what a joke that is — were being exploited by the evil NCAA and the NFL and the NBA because they’re not paid. They’re the product and they’re generating all these billions and billions and billions and billions of revenue and the students are getting nothing but half-acre meals and cheesy little accommodation. That was last week. This week the NCAA is the greatest damn sports organization on earth. Folks, look, is the general public gonna see through it? Who the hell knows. Odds are not