RUSH: Ladies and gentlemen, I have a question. I don’t know that anybody has an answer. I might have the answer, I have most of the answers. That still doesn’t eliminate my desire to ask the question. Why are gays and lesbians and Democrats so anti-religion? Why are they so intolerant of religious people? I mean, isn’t that kind of what’s going on here in Indiana? Some might say, “No, Rush, it’s chicken and egg. I mean, who started this? I don’t know.”
All I know is that back in 1993, Bill Clinton signed a religious protection act, freedom from discrimination, whatever it is, our RFRA, I don’t even know the title of it, but we all know what I’m talking about. It was designed to let Indians go ahead and smoke peyote. They were exempt from a statute because of their religious beliefs. The Democrats were out there celebrating that. The Democrats authored that. The Democrats wrote that, and something like 30 other states followed up and created their own freedom from religious discrimination act, whatever heck the name of the thing is.
And sometime between 1993 and today, it seems like the gays and lesbians, militant gays and lesbians, Democrats and liberals are just anti-religion. Well, anti-Christian. I don’t know what would happen if, let’s say a gay couple walked into a Muslim bakery and the Muslim bakery refused to bake the cake. I don’t know what would happen if a gay couple walked into a Muslim photography studio and said, “Hey, we want you to shoot pictures at our wedding.” I don’t know what would happen. But we do know what would happen if they walked into a bakery owned by Christians, photography studio owned by Christians.
In fact, if you had 10 bakeries in a neighborhood and only one of them was operated by devout Christians, why would you choose that one to go to? I think we all know the answer to these questions. I’m just asking them. (interruption) What, you think I’m over the line here asking the question? I’m not over the line at all.
Greetings, by the way, folks, great to have you. El Rushbo and the Excellence in Broadcasting Network. Here we are back at it three hours, revved and ready just as I promised.
The Restoration of Religious Freedom Act, or some such thing as that. (interruption) Yeah? The Official Program Observer is raising his hand for question. What’s the question? (interruption) Yeah, hmm. If someone doesn’t want to cook, like if you go into a restaurant you mean? “We don’t want cook for you,” would you still sit there and eat what they’re going to serve you, or would you leave and go someplace else where you’re more wanted or desired? (interruption) Well, no, it’s not a stupid question.
It’s a very illustrative — for those of you in Rio Linda, illustrative — question that illustrates the point here. It’s like mine. If, in your neighborhood there are 10 bakeries, you’re a gay couple, you’re gonna get married, 10 bakeries and there’s only one run by devout Christians, why go there? It’s obvious, isn’t it? They’re trying to pick the fight.
What I don’t understand is you go back, as I say, 1993 and Bill Clinton talking about God and religious freedom. Who cares if it was about Indians and peyote. It was so effective, it was so good, it reaffirmed the whole notion of the First Amendment protections for freedom to practice religion, that a bunch of other states glommed on to it and created their own versions of it. And the state versions mirror the federal version.
And back then, the Democrats were openly — well, at least more so than today — they were more than willing to praise God, talk about God, invoke God, appear to be doing the work of God. But sometime between then and now something’s dramatically changed. And it appears that the people who were applauding Clinton back in the day are now anti-religion, anti-Christian religion. And I just wonder, why, well, the intolerance? When did it start?
Now, Mike Pence, the governor of Indiana, boy, oh, boy did they just start dumping on Pence, and they dumped on Indiana. I mean, it was all over the place, predictably. NCAA: “Man, we wish we could take our tournament out of there.” All kinds of businesses began to think they were gonna fold up and leave. And then other governors in other states started making pitches for businesses in Indiana to relocate and conventions that were gonna take place in Indiana not to go there, to cancel and come to their other states. Rahm Emanuel is one. Emanuel made a pitch. Illinois has the identical law.
Illinois has an identical law to what everybody’s underwear is in a wad over in Indiana. Now, look, these questions answer themselves. I understand it. I’m just asking them. We all know what’s going on here. This is a version of the Republican War on Women. This is a campaign issue. Mike Pence, governor of Indiana, went out today — sound bites coming up — to try to put out the fire, and it’s not possible to put out the fire.
There is nothing Mike Pence could have said today to stop this because this isn’t about anything other than the 2016 election and things that are ancillaries of it. It’s a political issue and does not have a solution because the people that are stirring things up do not want there to be a solution. There’s nothing that Mike Pence could have said to mollify, because they’re not going to be mollified.
Mike Pence could do everything in the world that the activists are asking, and even after he did that, the activists and the Democrats would still continue the issue by pointing out, “Look what they did in the first place, and that’s who they really are. No matter they cave totally to us, that’s who they really are. That’s who the Republicans really are.” So there’s nothing that Pence could have done.
Now, I’ve had some e-mails from people today who are suggesting to me that Mike Pence caved in his appearance. Did you see it, Snerdley? Did you watch any of it? (interruption) Yeah, I saw some of it. We’ve got the sound bites coming up. But I’ve got e-mail, and you people that sent me e-mails, you know who you are — suggesting to me that Mike Pence caved and is now going to fix, quote, unquote, this law in Indiana not due to facts, but because of the seriousness of the charge.
People have learned well listening to the program, and they’ve pointed out that this is another one of these examples where the facts on the ground don’t matter a hill of beans and you can get blue in the face telling people about the facts. I made this point yesterday. Over here you got the facts, you got history, you got context, all that, doesn’t matter.
Over here you’ve got political issue, the emotions and what the opposition sees as another chance to do indelible constant, never-ending harm for the Republican Party. So that is what is going to be prevalent. And even if Pence were to do whatever it’s demanded that he do to totally fix this, they would still say the seriousness of the charge and the original intent, don’t care that Pence fixed it, look at who he really is. Don’t care that Indian fixed it, look what they tried to get away with. That’s what we’re up against in this country. We’ve got some sound bites coming up which will demonstrate to you that which I told you yesterday. This is an attack on the presumption of majorities being oppressors just by virtue of the fact that they are majorities.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: So Indiana is gonna fix the law. Mike Pence, the governor, went out there and said he’s gonna fix the law, gonna clarify the law. Why does Pence have to fix his law? Why can’t he just refuse to enforce it, like Obama does? Obama can just waive parts laws he doesn’t like. Obamacare comes along and it’s gonna be too punitive for some Democrat donors, he just waives it, just grants ’em exemption. Why doesn’t Pence just say, “I’ll do the same thing Obama does. You know, I’ll just selectively enforce this law, or I’ll refuse to enforce it on those occasions where it would be in my best interests not to enforce it. Just leave it to me.”
Hillary Clinton, by the same token, she can delete e-mails as she pleases. She can lie about it. She can say (imitating Clinton), “I don’t know what I’m really doing here. I just had two devices that got to be too cumbersome and so I just have one, I just have one, and I’ve sent you 30,000 e-mails, and I deleted the other 33,000 ’cause you don’t need to see ’em. Don’t doubt me. Trust me.”
Well, Hillary Clinton could just delete e-mails if she pleases. She can lie about how many devices. She can shield whatever it is she’s doing from anybody and the media and the Democrat Party will wantonly support her. Why does Mike Pence have to do anything? Yeah, damn well it’s double standards.
Then of course you have the Apple CEO, Tim Cook. He weighed in. You know, this was an amazing thing that he did. He didn’t insert himself into this. He inserted Apple into it. He inserted the company he runs into this whole thing in Indiana and beyond. The problem there is, the iPhone, Apple products just went on sale in Saudi Arabia. Do you know what they do to homosexuals in Saudi Arabia? It’s the same thing they do to ’em Iran. If they find them, they stone them or they behead them or they put them in jail, and they certainly get ’em out of sight. There’s no such thing as equality.
Like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at Columbia, when a student asked him about gays in Iran, he said, “We don’t have any of those.” And the audience started laughing. Ahmadinejad said, “Do you know some? Can you tell me where they live?” He was serious. So in Saudi Arabia — and, by the way, Apple has expressed an interest in opening some Apple stores in Iran now. But somehow Indiana is the focus of evil when it comes to equality.
There’s a bunch of ChiComs, there’s a bunch of other countries around the world which are genuinely, truly discriminatory, violently so, against homosexuals. Not a word is said about any of that. So Mike Pence at 11 o’clock this morning, a little over a couple hours ago, took the stage and the microphone to announce that he was going to fix the law. Let’s listen to some excerpts of his remarks.
PENCE: Clearly there’s been misunderstanding and confusion and mischaracterization of this law. And I come before you today to say how we’re going to address that. I don’t believe for a minute that it was the intention of the general assembly to create a license to discriminate or a right to deny services to gays, lesbians, or anyone else in this state. And it certainly wasn’t my intent. But I can appreciate that that’s become the perception, not just here in Indiana, but all across this country.
RUSH: Right. Why? Why does he appreciate that that’s become the perception? Because there’s a bunch of demagoguery going on out there, the Democrats are demagoguing and lying about this. And so the Republicans have to respond. Oh, yes, it’s required, it’s incumbent. Democrats throw out false accusations all the time, like Harry Reid saying somebody told him that Mitt Romney has never paid his income taxes. It was up to Romney to respond to that kind of blatant defamation and lies. Harry Reid never produced his friend, and he never produced any evidence.
So we’re back to the seriousness of the charge angle. Even there’s no evidence that there’s any discrimination that’s been licensed here in Indiana, they still have to defend the charge. Why? Why do they have to defend the charge? This is the same thing that Clarence Thomas was up against with the Anita Hill hearings when he was being confirmed for the US Supreme Court. Baseless charge, no evidence to support it anywhere. The seriousness of the charge demands that he respond.
It’s a trick. This law is a shield. It is not a weapon. This kind of discrimination, again, they’re trying to make it look like it happens all the time, every day, blatantly so, when it doesn’t. Pence next says that he abhors discrimination, which he no doubt does. But that’s not gonna mollify. He cannot mollify these people. That’s not the point. There is no solution. Indiana could not solve this. There is no solution. The left doesn’t want a solution. They don’t want this to end no matter what Indiana did.
PENCE: I abhor discrimination. The way I was raised was like most Hoosiers, with the Golden Rule, that you should do unto others as you would have them do unto you. And I believe in my heart of hearts that no one should be harassed or mistreated because of who they are, who they love, or what they believe. We’ve got a perception problem here because some people have a different view. This law does not give anyone a license to deny services to gay and lesbian couples. And, look, I could have handled that better this weekend. But going into that interview this weekend, I was just determined to set the record straight about what this law really is.
RUSH: He’s talking about the “gotcha” interview with Stephanopoulos in which Stephanopoulos was not listening to anything he said. (imitating Stephanopoulos) “Yes or no, yes or no, does this law allow Indiana Christians to discriminate against gays, yes or no, governor, yes or no, yes or no, yes or no?” And he tried to answer it as he’s answering it now, and that was not acceptable. Next he said he was taken aback. He had no idea there would be this kind of backlash.
Now, Mike Pence was in the House of Representatives for at least a couple of terms, and he was a member of the House when this kind of crap was happening daily. And to say that he was taken aback, I don’t know. I don’t know how anybody could be surprised at this. This is predictable.
In fact, if I didn’t know better I would say this whole thing is a Democrat constructed piece of legislation in Indiana designed for this exact purpose. Now, that’s not what happened. But it very well could be ’cause this is exactly what everybody wants out of this. This is what people don’t understand. The left is loving this. This is nirvana for them. Anyway, here’s Pence.
PENCE: Was I expecting this kind of backlash? Heavens, no. Candidly, when this erupted last week, even though I made my position clear weeks ago that I would sign the bill without much discussion, I was taken aback. And I have to tell you, that the gross mischaracterizations about this bill early on and some of the reckless reporting by some in the media about what this bill was all about, was deeply disappointing.
RUSH: Well, it may be deeply disappointing, but it was imminently predictable. This is what they do. The subject of gay rights comes up, it ought to be the biggest red flag. You ought to know what you’re getting into and if you’re gonna go there you better have a response ready to go.