RUSH: This is CNN Newsroom this morning. The anchorette, Ashleigh Banfield, spoke with the senior legal analyst at CNN, Jeffrey Toobin, about the Supreme Court oral arguments and the legality of Prop 8, which upheld the notion of… By the way, do you know what has become a popular term today in the debate? To show you, just to illustrate the inroads the homosexual marriage crowd has made, it is now common to hear on television and in the midst of debate the concept of “opposite-sex marriage.”

Yeah, same-sex marriage is so ingrained in the culture now that when you’re talking about regular, good old-fashioned marriage, you have to say “opposite-sex marriage” to let people know what you’re talking about. Just describing, just talking about “marriage” doesn’t let anybody know what you mean anymore. You have to specify opposite-sex marriage. Honest to God. Pay special attention and you’ll notice this. Anyway, Ashleigh Banfield says to Jeffrey Toobin, “I just need to know, how did it sound? Let me know what they said, how they questioned, and whether we can read any tea leaves.”

TOOBIN: (background noise) A deeply divided Supreme Court. I think it is even harder to predict the result of this case after hearing this argument. Certainly it was clear that Justice Scalia, Justice Alito, and almost certainly Chief Justice Roberts were very hostile to the idea of the court imposing same-sex marriage. It is quite clear, too, that the liberal justices, the four Democrats seemed favorably disposed. Justice Kennedy, as so often is the case, did seem like he was in the middle, and he said things that would give comfort to both sides. (chuckling) He did not seem anxious to even resolving this case. He suggested a couple of times that perhaps this whole issue was premature.

RUSH: Again, if Kennedy openly said, “Why are we even deciding this?” that could lead to him making a suggestion, let’s just dismiss this thing and not rule on it, and that’s where the can of worms gets opened, in terms of interpretation. You know, everybody wants to know what’s gonna happen before it happens. And everybody wants to be able to tell you what’s gonna happen before it happens when nobody knows. And before it happens, I mean, by that the court’s ruling, which comes in June.

So now, as you can hear from Toobin, Kennedy is the focus. The left has got to get to Kennedy between now and the final vote, whenever that’s taken. The ruling is in June; the final vote obviously is sometime before that. So then, Ashleigh Banfield said, “Well, chief justice Roberts’ cousin was sitting there listening. She’s a gay women. She wants to be able to get married. I didn’t know if it had an influence. Could you feel that it did?”

TOOBIN: Certainly! She wasn’t seated with the immediate family members. There’s a family section. The justices have access to seats elsewhere in the courtroom. If he is sympathetic to his cousin’s plight, I didn’t sense that.

RUSH: Oh, no! Oh, no. The big story yesterday, LA Times was that Justice Roberts has a cousin who’s a lesbian and she was gonna be there, and they were gonna put her in the front row and they were gonna try to gauge Justice Roberts’ reaction to his lesbian cousin being there. You just heard Toobin say, “If he’s sympathetic, I didn’t sense it.” Well, that doesn’t mean that he isn’t. It just means that he didn’t betray himself one way or the other, portray himself one way or the other. But, folks, the reason why, again, this is all-nail-biting stuff to everybody — and particularly the left.

I mean if you boil it down, they’re still nervous as hell because if what they want is gonna happen, it’s gonna have to be forced on the people of the country. You may not know it, but everywhere this issue has come up before the people, it has been voted down. The concept of homosexual marriage has been voted down everywhere. And that’s why it’s at the Supreme Court, because the will of the people here has never been on the side of same-sex marriage. So that’s why they’re biting their nails.

The other side is biting its nails because they’re constantly concerned the will of the people doesn’t count for anything anymore. In their view, “What’s the next thing that nobody wants is gonna be forced on us?” We’ve had Obamacare forced on us. We’ve had any number of things forced on us that nobody voted for, nobody wanted. What’s next? A lot of people think the whole government right now is governing against the will of the people, and there’s no end in sight to it. It’s a very deflating realization.

The left is nervous for the same reason. They know they don’t have any popular support for what they really believe. They do know that, folks. They may never admit that but they know it. That’s why everything has to be forced — and tthey don’t care, by the way. They don’t care. I mean, the fact that what they believe in doesn’t have popular support does not slow them down at all. They’re not like…

Now, I imagine there’s some of you out there, probably very feverishly punching your phones trying to get in here to ask me, “Well, what about when the will of the people goes against what you want?” I’ll be glad to answer that question, and here’s the difference between conservatives and liberals. When we lose a vote of the people, we immediately set out trying to — within the boundaries of the democratic process — changing people’s minds and hearts.

We do not force things on people. That’s not how we want things to eventuate. That’s not how we want things to happen. We have what we consider to be, anyway, a respect for our form of government, a constitutional republic. We believe in it. We want legitimate mandates. We win an election, we want it to be because the genuine majority of people who share our beliefs. We don’t think we accomplish anything by forcing something on people. But that’s not the way the left looks at this at all. They can only get what they want by forcing it on people.

The will of the people goes against us all the time. It’s the nature of life. Nobody ever gets everything they want. But within this context, our solution or course of action, our form of redress is to go back to the people again and again and again until we persuade them, but always leaving it up to them. Why are you smirking or smiling in there? Well, why not ask me the question now? Why wait ’til during the break? Hm-hm. Hm-hm. Do I think that there was any question about the original will of the framers on this issue?

No, I don’t think the framers of the Constitution never once imagined that ever, in the history of humanity, would this question ever come up and be treated with validity. Do you think Washington and Adams and Jefferson and Monroe said, “You know, we can see three, 400 years down the line where marriage isn’t gonna be between a man and a woman.” Wouldn’t even consider it. What are you trying to get, original intent for marriage in the Constitution?

Here’s the thing. You know, the 14th Amendment is what the same-sex marriage proponents are using, and that’s how they’re linking it to civil rights. And, by the way, this is really important here, folks. The reason that the proponents of homosexual marriage call it a civil right is because it’s all about optics and imagery and PR, and if you’ve got a civil right, no matter what it is, it may as well be draped in gold. A civil right is unchallengeable. A civil right is the most powerful right anybody can have. And people who oppose them are bigots. So you categorize what you want as a civil right, you immediately establish your opponent as a bunch of bigot hayseeds making it easier to defeat them.

Now, to answer your question specifically, the 14th Amendment and the equal-protection clause, which is what the proponents argue, that’s where they go in the Constitution to advance the notion of same-sex marriage, the 14th Amendment was passed after the Civil War to apply to former slaves to ensure that they are treated like all other citizens. It never did have anything to do with gay marriage. It was never intended to have anything to do with gay marriage or animal marriage or any other kind of social contract. It was specific to slavery, and after the Civli War. But, you know, the left looks at the Constitution and sees things that aren’t there and then they find ’em. They look at things that are there and claim they’re not there. Like the Second Amendment, nah, nah, it’s not there, they really didn’t intend that. No, no. Abortion. You can’t find it, yeah, there it is, plain as day, see, it’s right there in the 14th Amendment, the Tenth Amendment, the Ninth Amendment, the Fifth — no, it’s not.

I did a keyword search, even on Google, the Google guys haven’t even found a way to put abortion in the Constitution yet. Give ’em time. Give the Google guys time and abortion will show up in a keyword search of the Constitution. It’s not there yet. Second Amendment is. These liberals are the craziest things. The Constitution, they see things in it that aren’t there and ignore things which are. The 14th Amendment, nothing to do with gay marriage.

Anyway, Rob Reiner, Meathead, All in the Family on CNN this afternoon. He was on with Michael Holmes, coanchor. “What about those, Meathead, who say it was the will of the people, California, states have the right to decide? What do you say to that concept, the will of the people?”

REINER: When it comes to a civil right — and there’s no question about this, this is a civil right — this is not something that is — should be left to the whims of voters. If that was the case, maybe women can’t vote, maybe black people should still be slaves. I mean, these are civil rights, and this is the one class of people, the gay and lesbian community, the one class of people in this country that is viewed lesser under the law.

RUSH: See? I mean, the guy has come along and confirmed every argument I am telling you that they use. Will of the people, we can’t leave it up to them. It’s a civil right, and you start comparing this to slavery and women not being able to vote and all that. And that’s how normalcy ends up getting perverted and trumped up to be things that it isn’t. Anyway, that line’s gonna get me in trouble tonight. I don’t care.