RUSH: Here’s George in Coral Gables, Florida, as we start on the phones today. George, thank you for calling. Great to have you here. Hi.

CALLER: Good afternoon, El Rushbo. I am a longtime listener. In fact, I remember when you were on WTVJ-TV down here in Miami back in the… When was it, the late ’80s?

RUSH: That would have been 1992, ’93, ’94, ’95, and ’96.

CALLER: Yeah.

RUSH: Some great years in American history.

CALLER: I think that this is probably a good ruling, and the reason is that us as conservatives — and I’m very conservative. I agree with about 95%, 97% of everything you say. But the gay marriage issue has been a huge stumbling block. The reason that it is is because I can persuade my liberal gay friends, and I happen to be gay myself, of the magnificence of our arguments — the logic, the reason, the evils of the far left and liberalism and how it destroys and hurts pretty much every level of society whether it’s economic or social.

I can persuade my liberal friends on those arguments. But when it comes to the gay rights issue, they just throw it out as a huge stumbling block. “But you’re supporting a party that’s against your very essence, your very being of who you are,” and that’s where I always lose the argument. You know, I just ask you a simple question” Do you believe there’s such a thing as homosexual citizens of the United States? Yes or no.

RUSH: You’re asking me?

CALLER: Yes.

RUSH: What kind of question is that?

CALLER: Do you believe that there are gay citizens of the United States?

RUSH: Okay, I’ll play with you. No.

CALLER: You don’t believe that there’s any gays in America?

RUSH: I want to see where you’re going. What is the point? This is silly, silly question. The Republican Party doesn’t believe that. Nobody believes that, and the Republican Party is not known for hate — well, it may be known for it, but it’s not the case. The Republican Party doesn’t hate gays, doesn’t hate anybody.

CALLER: I never said they did.

RUSH: Well, you just did. You said talking to your gay buddies you said they’re against this or that.

CALLER: Well, I’m talking about the liberal ones. I can persuade people on the merits of the argument, but we basically in most cases — even the DOMA case, the majority of the voters were Republican in that particular thing. They passed it for political expedience. They wanted to get more people to come out to that election cycle. I mean, I kind of understand why politics works the way it does, but it’s not a good thing to create some kind of discrimination as part of the law. It’s just a bad idea. If we can get this issue off the table and put it behind us and move forward, just the miscegenation laws back in the fifties and sixties… I’m sure a lot of people were in favor of that, too, but it was wrong. It was wrong then; it’s wrong now.

RUSH: The what laws back in the fifties and sixties?

CALLER: Miscegenation.

RUSH: Miscegenation laws?

CALLER: Yeah, miscegenation. It’s when white and blacks couldn’t marry. It was the law in 26 states.

RUSH: Okay, so you think that there was discrimination against gays when claiming that —

CALLER: When they can’t get married. Yeah, I do.

RUSH: Okay.

CALLER: And especially when you have about 1100 federal rights and privileges and, you know, you get special things.

RUSH: So gay marriage is a route to benefits? That’s what its primary purpose is now, marriage is a route to benefits?

CALLER: Rush, I submit to you that probably your most precious, prized possession is not your money or your house or anything. It’s probably your marriage certificate with Kathryn. I don’t think there’s anything in the world that could persuade you to give that up.

RUSH: Irrelevant.

CALLER: Well, I think it’s an important thing.

RUSH: Entirely irrelevant. There’s no comparison. Look, here’s the thing. No, this is where this all breaks drown. There’s a bunch of flawed premises that you are advancing here that the Republican Party is being held back by everything the left wants. What the Republican Party needs to do is give up everything it supports and then it will be loved, and what people really mean is, “Why don’t you Republicans just quit?

“Why don’t you just disband and stop opposing us and then people will love you?” Nobody has ever been denied the right to get married. Not a single person. Stop and think about that. Marriage is something. Nobody is saying it’s not. If you want to get married, there are certain qualifications. There have been certain qualifications. If you don’t meet them, you can’t do it. I can’t get into a bunch of clubs I’d like to get into either, ’cause I don’t fit.

Big deal!

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Here’s John in Birch Bay, Washington. Great to have you on the EIB Network, sir. Hello.

CALLER: Hello, Rush. I’m a little nervous. I don’t call shows much. I’ve listened for probably 19 years. I am a proud socialist. I’m as left as you get. But about the Defense of Marriage Act, what I was telling the other guy is that if your side had left religion out of it, I would almost be on your side. Nations created the benefits for marriage — every nation throughout history, even the non-Christian ones — because they want more children. Those laws are there to create more people. So on that line, gay marriage can’t create more citizens. You know, if you guys had left the religion part out, you might have won. I have been married for 20 years — well, 22 — and I am nonreligious. So when you people say that, you are a slapping me in the face and saying my marriage doesn’t really count because I don’t believe in God.

RUSH: Well, many of the defenders of traditional marriage do believe it has religious roots —

CALLER: But why?

RUSH: — to the Bible and the Word of God.

CALLER: But why?

RUSH: These civilizations that you described simply adopted that and incorporated that in their then political laws and other rulings that had effect on marriage in terms of benefits for kids, tax deductions, that kind of thing what you’re talking about.

CALLER: But, Rush, Alexander the Great had wives. Ghengis Khan had wives. They weren’t Christian. I mean, wives have been around — marriage has been around — longer than Christianity. So I don’t know how they’re tied together.

RUSH: Well, “Jen-jiss” Khan, as John Kerry said, had more than one wife at a time?

CALLER: He did. But they still considered it what we consider marriage. They still considered it —

RUSH: Well, we will now, too.

CALLER: I mean, right now there are multiple wives.

RUSH: We will now, too. I mean, the door is open a crack, and it’s gonna be real tough to close it. When the definition of marriage has now been thrown wide open, it’s gonna be able to include a bunch of things that heretofore were not deemed acceptable or right or proper or legal or what have you.

CALLER: But, again, even now in other countries where the people are allowed to have multiple wives you’re saying their marriages are not real just because they don’t believe in Christianity. But they don’t believe that, so I don’t understand why Christianity —

RUSH: Not just Christianity. I mean, you find any number of religions that —

CALLER: Again, they believe in other gods.

RUSH: — marriage has religious roots. But let’s get to your point is —

CALLER: Yes.

RUSH: — that if the advocates of traditional marriage would —

CALLER: Yes.

RUSH: — leave religion out of it totally, that that —

CALLER: Just talk about —

RUSH: — would not have angered the same-sex marriage the crowd?

CALLER: Well, the problem is it is a logical argument. One of the reasons I listen to you is I’m very left and I love playing devil’s advocate with my leftist friends. But the reason most of the civilizations even back to Rome promoted marriage is because the way to win is to have the most citizens, and marriage creates children. So you give tax breaks so that they’ll make more children. So on that logical level, homosexual couples can’t make a child.

RUSH: What I —

CALLER: You said marriage is about making more children. There would be no argument against that.

RUSH: Oh, yeah, there would have been. Because this is gonna be blown up no matter what, because this is about much more than religion. This is about blowing up traditional morality. That’s what this is about.

CALLER: Rush, I’m one of those leftists —

RUSH: No, it’s —

CALLER: — and we don’t care about morality. We really don’t.

RUSH: You know what would have been more acceptable? Just get rid of the marriage benefits —

CALLER: I agree with you.

RUSH: — rather than redefine marriage.

CALLER: That’s exactly what you should have — they should have gone for. The right should have said, “Fine. We don’t need that many more people anymore. We’re already more populated. Let’s give up all the benefits.”

RUSH: No, no.

CALLER: That would have been logical.

RUSH: People would have had kids without the benefits. The idea… Most people don’t have kids just for the benefits. Some do, but they’re generally not married.

CALLER: I know that’s not why they have them, but that’s how the civilization promotes it. I’ve gone to college, taken many history classes, and the main reason that —

RUSH: That does not mean you were told the truth.

CALLER: No, I know. I’ve heard your view on that. But what I’m saying is, it’s very logical, if you want more people than the other — your enemy, you trying to get your people to make as many babies as possible. So they come up with as many promises for making babies —

RUSH: I don’t want to throw a monkey wrench into this, but who is it that’s advocating the killing of those babies?

CALLER: Again, I’m not… If we want to discuss abortion, then we have to… You know, you want to have a discussion about defining when a baby is a baby —

RUSH: I’m just telling you, if the traditional marriage people had gone about this, “Look, we need to maintain marriage for what it is, because the whole point is to produce children,” you would have had the same thing degree of outrage because that would have been really ratcheted up on the discrimination front. “Well, you’re telling me I can’t marry because I can’t have children? I have no control over that! It’s not fair. Just because I can’t have children, I shouldn’t be denied the right to marriage!” So why not take the benefits out of it? If you take the benefits out of it, if we’da done that — there’s no earned income child credit, no tax credit, no this, no that, no nothing for getting married — your theory is that the homosexual community would not have demanded it? Is that right?

CALLER: I think they would have been fine with another option, and I don’t think your side would have cared so much about it, either. It wouldn’t be an issue at all, I think, because a lot of the… I have a lot of good friends. They worry about, you know, passing on property when this spouse dies, seeing the spouse in the hospital. They could have addressed every single one of those issues individually if they didn’t have the religion aspect. If they didn’t say, “It was gonna ruin the sanctity of marriage,” they could have addressed every single economic issue one by one.

RUSH: So you say take those out, get rid of all those —

CALLER: Take out the sanctity part.

RUSH: — then there would not have even been a controversy?

CALLER: No, I mean, of course there’s gonna be a controversy! You know, we live in a controversial country, but you guys would have — on logic there’s no way your side could have lost. Again, it’s like me. I don’t —

RUSH: You know what’s fascinating —

CALLER: Yes?

RUSH: — about this?

CALLER: Yes?

RUSH: What really is fascinating about this is, you say there’s no way our side coulda lost. Have you ever heard of Obamacare? Have you ever heard of illegal immigration, amnesty? No way our side could have lost?

CALLER: Well, we’re talking about this one issue. You don’t want to get me started on the other one so I’m with you kind of on this one so we should stick to this one. But, yes, I — I don’t think this one issue would have related to those other issues in any way. I’m simply saying the historical reason for marriage, if you study history, was mainly to promote and encourage child production, to figure out how to pass on real estate to next of kin. That is really the only reason for marriage in the early years. There were plenty of countries who believed in some kind of marriage that knew nothing about Jesus or any of that.

RUSH: Yeah.

CALLER: But they wanted to out-produce their enemies.

RUSH: See, this country… Look at the founding documents. The Declaration of Independence. Read George Washington’s Thanksgiving Proclamation. You can’t take God out of this country. That’s what’s wrong, is that people are succeeding in doing that. That’s really what’s wrong here. You cannot take God out of the country. There is no United States of America without God, and that’s what offends people. You’re right: That’s what bothers people. So you want take God out of everything and there’s not gonna be a problem. There also won’t be what has always been known as this country. There will be a country, but it won’t be what it was founded as, and that’s what’s really going on.

You actually have nailed it.

You actually have.

John, I thank you for the call.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: You know, John — our last caller from Birch Bay, Washington — was really instructive. Of all the things to object to in the issue of same-sex marriage, of all the things there are out there to find objectionable about same-sex marriage from either the homosexual perspective or the liberal perspective — of all the things that you could object to it over, he cited religion. He said that was what really sealed the deal for the pro-same-sex marriage crowd, was that it was opposed by Christians.

If the Christians had just shut up, then this might nota happened. If the Christians had just been quiet, just take the Christians out of it and, i.e., religion. But, see, logic… He also made a point about logic. This is the unfortunate thing, folks. Logic is being defeated practically every day. Logic, common sense, tradition, whatever — learned history and tradition — is being defeated every day by emotion.

And if there is a combination of emotional and low-information, uninformed people who have had their feelings ratcheted up… If there is one thing that is responsible for — some of you might call it the “corruption,” but if there’s one thing that is responsible for — the never-ending assault on traditions and institutions that define this country, it is the concept, as used and proselytized by the left, of “fairness.”

The premise of the left is that virtually everything about this country, from its origins, was unfair. And that, to low-information, uninformed, other-types of people, works like magic. (New Castrati impression) “Because everything should be fair, Mr. Limbaugh! It is unfair that this can’t be! It is unfair, and that’s not fair. It’s unfair for somebody to have more than somebody. It’s unfair for somebody to earn more. It’s unfair that somebody should have that club membership and somebody else not!

“It’s unfair somebody can marry! I think it’s unfair,” and the whole premise of unfairness is rooted in what? This exclusive utopia out there where everybody is equal and everybody prosperous and everybody has everything they want, or nobody has anything they want. In either case, it’s fair. If anybody doesn’t have everything they want, then there’s no fairness, and it’s got to be changed. If everybody has nothing, that’s cool, because there’s nothing unfair about it. That is the root of all of this, all of these messes, which is what they are.