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Oct. 10, 2011 - Rush Limbaugh Program
35:40
October 10, 2011, Monday, Hour #3
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Thanks, everybody.
Rush is back tomorrow.
Something else to be thankful for.
I'm thankful for your time and attention.
Your phone calls.
We're about to get back to here in just a moment.
1-800-282-2882.
I've done a lot of the Occupy Wall Street movement, a lot of 2012 talk, a lot of this, a lot of that.
And on a Monday, you tend to talk about things that come up over the weekend.
So here's something that came up over the weekend.
And I'm going to undertake what might be a fairly Herculean task, but doggone it.
I've spent a few years at this, and I'm going to give it the old college try.
And that is, as soon as you hear the stories about the big dust up over what all the other candidates are saying about Mitt Romney's Mormonism, the odds are that your eyes just glaze over and your brain turns to jelly because you know what's about to happen.
You just know it's going to become a you-know-whatin' contest between the people who hate Mormons and think they're going to rot in the lake of fire and then the Mormons themselves who feel very put upon and very slandered and just nothing ever gets done.
And it's just that kind of standoff.
I've tried to navigate that breach for years and I feel like I've succeeded.
You may feel otherwise.
And I'll tell you all about that in a second.
First, just a quick thing that blipped across my screen.
We're witnessing the end of an era.
The Dodge minivan.
Chrysler has announced that it will end production of the iconic best-selling Dodge Grand Caravan in favor of those nifty crossover utility vehicles that look more like, it's kind of funny.
Didn't we used to call those station wagons?
I know it's different.
I know they're very, very different.
But anyway, there we are.
RIP, the Dodge Minivan.
All right, here's the deal.
First, let's talk about what your religious test is for a presidential candidate.
Here's mine.
Yours may differ.
If so, call me.
We'll talk about it.
I am prepared not to care what religion a presidential candidate is unless I have a reason to believe that that candidate's faith might lead him or her to do things I don't want a president to do.
Okay, case in point.
I have a fairly large disagreement with my Jewish brothers and sisters over whether Jesus is the son of God.
I think he is.
They think he's not.
Guess what?
That doesn't have a blessed thing to do, no pun intended, with the presidency.
So if Eric Cantor runs for the presidency, I don't care.
His Jewishness is a non-issue to me.
All right.
Now let's go to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
I obviously have some disagreements there.
I have no real grasp of Jesus coming to North America and the whole Joseph Smith Brigham Young thing and the whole golden tablets.
I mean, that's just nowhere in my set of beliefs.
But not only am I not concerned about what a Mormon president might do, my inclination is to think that a Mormon president, in fact, a Mormon anything, a Mormon dog catcher, a Mormon neighbor, an LDS librarian, is probably going to be cut from some of the finest human cloth I can find.
People say it so much that it sounds condescending.
It's like I have black friends, but it's true.
Here's what I'm going to say.
Mormons are just some of the nicest folks I've ever met.
And I've known a lot of y'all.
Y'all are great.
You're fantastic.
And your values are super.
And there is nothing in LDS theology that makes me think, oh, not in the White House.
No, can't do that.
So the only things that keep me from being a less than enthusiastic Romney guy are things like Romney care and wondering whether he might be drinking the Kool-Aid of man-made climate change.
Real ideas, policies, not his Mormon faith.
There's nothing about that that makes me recoil from him as a presidential candidate.
Okay, so far so good.
You with me so far?
All right.
The line of questioning this past weekend, I think Candy Crowley at CNN was all fired up about asking Michelle Bachman and Herman Cain, is Mitt Romney a Christian?
Now it's getting interesting.
All right, gather around, kids, because here's how that goes.
If someone wishes to draw such a broad umbrella over the definition of Christianity so that it includes anybody who is a follower of Jesus, even if they have crafted a whole new scripture 1800 years after Jesus lived and had him coming to North America and a whole new list of prophets and earthly people that can write scripture like Joseph Smith, you know,
and still be considered Christian?
Okay.
Okay.
Feel free to have that kind of elbow room, that kind of broad and mega-inclusive latitude.
You may do that.
However, if someone comes to the table of, you know, theological debate and says, you know, as soon as you invent, pardon me, as soon as you craft, invent sounds so dismissive, as soon as you add another entire scripture after the Bible, as soon as you have Jesus coming to places the Bible does not have him coming, as soon as you have all kinds of things that are not only absent from scripture,
from biblical scripture, but contrary to it, you may have, boy, concocted sounds dismissive too.
I need verbs.
I need synonyms immediately.
You may have crafted, crafted's good.
I'm going to go with crafted.
It sounds respectful, and I mean it today.
You may have crafted an adjunct to Christianity, a derivative of Christianity, an offshoot of Christianity, because it's very much about Jesus.
But is it Christianity in the historic sense and in the generally understood sense?
No.
No, it's not.
And I think that because of the two or three minutes I've spent getting into this, you know that I say that not out of any disregard for Mormon folks.
Are you kidding?
I love them.
Not out of anything disparaging about their faith or beliefs.
I am Mr. Religious Freedom.
Whatever you believe, I am prepared to give you all the latitude in the world unless you want to kill me.
That's going to be a bit of a deal breaker.
But anything else, I don't care.
It's not my gig.
It doesn't matter.
I will not think less of you.
But words mean things to me.
Meanings mean things to me.
And for people walking around saying that being of the LDS faith, being a Mormon is just like being a Methodist or a Lutheran, Episcopalian, Mormon.
No!
It's way different.
Way different.
And what I think is, and here's what I wonder.
Have Mormons become so tired of being beaten up for the differentness of their views and slandered and thought ill of that they just kind of feel like they've got, they've got to be just some other branch of Christianity as an acceptance thing?
Kind of like everybody that's gay wants you to think it's just like being left-handed or red-haired.
Hey, it's just another way to be.
Well, not so much.
Not to start another whole talk show, but the reason for that is because if everybody's left-handed, there's still a human race.
If everybody's red-haired, there's still a human race.
Everybody's gay, well, okay, follow me there.
And I say that without, there's, and there's not a homophobic bone in my body.
All right?
All right.
So maybe that's the sad place where we are, is that there are some people who have been really unkind and really abusive, you know, toward Mormons over the years.
Some folks are just, you know, like, you're different and that's bad.
And, you know, maybe that's just a, you know, a part of human nature that arises every once in a while.
And some of the Mormon folks are so sick of that.
It's like, well, dog on it, we just simply have to spin this, that we're just another kind of Christian.
Well, good luck with all that.
I would hope that's not necessary.
I would hope that some of the first people to make this observation would be LDS clergy who would say, you know what, we're not Christian in the strictest sense, in the, you know, the Christian historic biblical sense.
We're a little different from that.
We've blazed another trail off that main Christian highway.
We are absolutely followers of Christ.
We absolutely revere Jesus.
We absolutely observe much of the shared imagery of him as our as our Protestant and Catholic brothers and sisters, but we are decidedly different.
Why isn't that okay?
One of the things that has made it hard, here comes another language thing.
You ready?
I'm about to drop the C bomb.
No, not that one.
Cult.
Is Mormonism a cult?
And that's the, and right around here, I'm right here in Dallas, Fort Worth, Pastor Robert Jefferson, First Baptist, Dallas.
Everybody wants to talk to him about, no, hey, you said Mormonism is a cult.
Well, yes, I did, he says.
Okay, there are two ways of looking at this.
And because of the one way that is so dominant, I have a recommendation for everybody.
You may choose to take this recommendation.
You may choose to ignore it.
If I say cult to you, what do you think of?
You think of the branch Davidians, you think of some wacky outfit that's abducting teenagers in California in the 70s.
They got to deprogram them.
I mean, you think of bestowing all kinds of divinity on some crazy, earthly person.
They're luring people in.
And once you're in, it's almost impossible to get out.
And they're abrasively derisive about people who are on the outside, etc.
I mean, we all know what we can close our eyes and imagine a cult, what a cult is, and it's a really bad thing.
So when anybody asks, well, is Mormonism a cult?
I've often defined a cult as any religion you really don't like.
And I think that in usage, that happens a lot.
But just in the modern parlance, in the lexicon of everyday life, a cult is a bad group that lures people in, having invented a phony religion and guides them in horrible places and probably does bad things to them.
And it's basically also, by the way, people who are flat out crazy.
That's a cult, okay?
Ask 100 people what a cult is, and that's what they're going to talk about.
That's what they're going to mean.
For that reason, the whole drop, calling Mormonism a cult does not help you in the clarity department unless you mean to insult them.
But here's the technicality that makes this tricky.
Theologically, strictly theologically, a cult is any system of religious veneration and devotion directed toward a particular figure, maybe sometimes even an object.
And the elevation of Joseph Smith is to such a degree that theologically, you could look at this and attach that technical label.
I'm going to highly recommend against doing that.
I mean, if you're in a theological, if you're in a theology class and you're going through all this and wandering through the text and all of this, sure, knock yourself out.
You can talk about the denotative dictionary definition of a cult as a system of religious veneration and devotion directed toward a particular figure or object, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
But if you're just walking around over coffee, in a bar, at dinner, don't be calling folks, don't be calling anybody, don't be referring to something as a cult unless you mean it to be profoundly insulting, because that is the way it's going to be taken.
Okay?
Okay.
So, how'd that work out for you?
It took a while.
Well, because it's me, it's going to take a while.
But there you are.
So there you are.
And Governor Romney is all over the place now.
And I guess if anybody refuses to identify Mormonism as just another branch of Christianity, either Governor Romney or his folks are going to suggest that this is religious bigotry.
It is nothing of the kind.
It is nothing of the kind.
All righty.
Gee, and we only have 41 more minutes of show.
Such a shame.
Mark Davis in for rush.
Oh, yeah.
Your calls are next on the EIB Network.
It is Monday, the 10th of October, Columbus Day.
You've got the day off.
Good for you.
Maybe that offers you up the opportunity to listen to the show.
There's a good news, bad news.
You actually have the day off.
Wow, I could listen to the Rush Limbaugh show.
Oh, and the infernal fill-in guy is there.
Doggone it.
Well, I'm Mark Davis from WBAP Dallas-Fort Worth.
Much appreciate your time and energies today on the phone.
Rush is absolutely back tomorrow after he enjoys a well-deserved Columbus Day off.
All righty, to the phones, to the phones.
Duke Blue Devil Country, Durham, North Carolina.
Donna, Mark Davis, in for Rush.
How are you?
Mark, I'm doing great.
And as they say here in the South, bless your heart.
You're very kind.
That's what they say to somebody when they have great intentions, but they're really wrong.
Oh, goodness gracious me.
So I want to comment on the whole Mormonism issue and what is it to be a Mormon and is it a cult?
Because I was raised Mormon.
I have studied six years in Mormon Seminary.
I understand the religion inside and out.
Very good.
But no, I'm not Mormon.
I haven't been for a long time.
Now I'm Baptist.
And as much as I respect the viewpoints that you have, they're not quite right.
Well, then let's get to the business of finding fault with them.
Go ahead.
Well, first of all, Mormonism is absolutely not a cult.
And you talked about their veneration of Joseph Smith as making them kind of maybe a cult.
But the reality is in Mormonism, they do not worship Joseph Smith.
They do not revere him in a way that you're describing where they kind of put him on par with Jesus or something.
He is to them, he's a leader.
He was a prophet to them.
But no more so than, you know, people revere and love Billy Graham or Donna, as an actual ex-Mormon, you are going to equate Joseph Smith and Billy Graham?
Come on, have you forgotten that much?
And I love you.
No, no, no.
I've lived in both worlds.
Okay, but maybe you've lost a little touch with the first one.
And also, and this is extremely important, Donna, understand what I'm saying.
I am not sitting here saying that I attach myself viscerally to the technical theological designation of a cult that may be attached to Mormonism in some theology textbook.
I'm saying if someone does that, they have at least an appreciable foundation for doing it.
My overall.
And you get to.
And you get to do that.
And you obviously have a principled background for your view as well.
I think it's something over which you can have a theological debate.
Overarching.
We could have one.
No, indeed so.
But rather than do that, and you'll have time.
But rather than do that, my overall point was, let's let that exist in some theology classroom.
And overall, in the general American discourse, let's avoid referring to Mormonism as a cult because generally speaking, it is a term that is used in an insulting connotation.
And on that, I think you and I would agree.
Go then go.
Of course they are.
That's beyond doubt.
Nobody differs that.
Okay, next point.
Go ahead.
So on whether or not they are Christians, I firmly believe that people have a right to self-determination.
And if somebody believes in Jesus and they profess their faith and they believe that they are, then it's not up to somebody else to say whether or not they are or not.
But Donna, that is very screwed up.
Hang on to it.
We got about a minute and a half.
That's really messed up, and here's why.
And I really, really love you.
Self-determination, excuse me.
A group of people gets to determine what they are.
What if I invent a religion tomorrow that says that Jesus operates out of a body shop in Schenectady?
And then I write a whole new script.
And I'm not saying this in any insulting comparison to the Book of Mormon.
Not at all.
I'm taking what you've described as an example.
Do I get to call myself a Christian?
And the five people who gather with me in that body shop, we say we're mainstream Christian.
Hey, it's self-determination.
Come on, Donna.
You know what?
This is a free country.
And yes, you do get a self-control.
Of course it is.
No, Donna, nobody's.
That's my analogy.
No, no, no, hang on to the.
I may or may not have time for the analogy.
This is not about someone's right to say they are Christian.
Of course they can.
I believe that the right to determine whether one is something or not rests with the people who undeniably are.
And that if 80% of Christians say that Mormons are not really mainstream Christian, that that's what defines reality more than what the people wish they were regarded as.
Go ahead.
Give me your analogy.
Give me your analogy.
Go ahead.
Got done.
It's about like asking a Yankees fan to define whether or not a Met fan is a true basic.
Absolutely not.
Absolutely not.
Because that's just rivalry.
Donna, because Yankees fans and Red Sox fans hate each other.
That is an adversarial relationship.
This doesn't need to be adversarial at all.
Just descriptive.
That's all.
You are a wonderful call, and thank you.
You know what it takes for me to throw down blue devil love?
Because I'm a University of Maryland graduate, Donna.
Let me tell you, I've lost many a game to the Duke Blue Devils.
All righty, listen.
Thank you, Donna.
Thanks to everybody in North Carolina.
Next up, I think, South Carolina.
So stick tight, Matt.
I think you're next.
Mark Davis in for rush on the EIB network.
Okay, home stretch, everybody.
Final half hour of the Monday Rush Limbaugh Show for Columbus Day.
Rush wanted off on Columbus Day.
Who is anyone to deny him that?
He will be back at the Golden EIB microphone tomorrow.
All righty, two the phones, to the phones, while we're talking about all manner of global religions, are all of you keeping track of the plight of Yusuf Nadarkani.
He is 32.
He is a Christian pastor in Iran.
I know.
Uh-oh.
Yeah, exactly.
The case of this Iranian pastor now facing a death sentence.
And what's the death sentence for over there in oh, so reasonable Sharia law governed Iran?
Oh, we can coexist with these folks.
There's nothing too radical going on over there.
Come on.
What's all this scare campaign about Sharia law?
Come on, come on.
Lighten up, everybody.
Yeah, how about if we don't?
Because this guy could very well be executed for converting to Christianity.
Now, I don't find this under every rock, right?
I know a lot of people are all about this and Christianity under attack all over the world and in America and blah, blah, blah.
And it is to a large degree.
But this is a particularly egregious example.
He has an attorney, and the attorney has given us a bit of news that in the face of growing international support and even folks in America, like the American Center for Law and Justice, they're starting to draw attention to this.
And Iran is starting to notice that if we execute this Christian guy just for being a Christian for the crime of apostasy, we might not look real good in the global marketplace.
And all of a sudden, Iran does seem to care about that.
I mean, if you are, if you pretty well have a leader, a secular leader in Ahmadinejad, who's kind of a Hitler starter kit, and if your overall philosophy is to yearn for the violent eradication of Israel from the map, you probably ought to sugarcoat your image in as many other ways as possible.
So here's what I hope.
It appears that the case of Yusuf Nadarkani, this Christian pastor in Iran, that the whole case has been handed over to the Ayatollah Ali Khomeini, who is the spiritual leader and highest authority.
He's Ahmadinejad's religious boss.
And he now has this case in his hands, apparently.
And here's what I hope.
I hope that the Ayatollah Khomeini, not the Ayatollah Khomeini, he was the Iran 1979 guy, embassy siege guy.
This is the Ayatollah Khomeini, K-H-A-M-E-N-E-I.
I hope he has an idea.
Because you remember, didn't we just release the hikers?
The people stupid enough to be hiking along the Iran-Iraq border.
Can't you go to the Rockies or something?
Maybe the hill country of Texas?
Maybe the Adirondacks.
Hey, let's go hiking.
Where do you want to go?
Iran-Iraq border.
Boy, let's rethink.
Anyway, they did.
They wound up in Iranian prison, of course.
Anyway, they let those guys out, I think, so that the world would think better of them.
Well, let's hope that the mullahs in Iran are in the mood to let this guy go too.
Yusuf Nadarkani.
I hope so.
I hope so.
All righty, back to your calls.
We are in Charleston, South Carolina.
Matt, Mark Davis, in for Rush.
Hello.
Oh, I'm sorry.
Hang on a second.
Is there a okay?
Well, let's see him.
Nick, Salt Lake City.
Hey, Mark Davis, in for Rush.
How are you?
I'm fine.
How are you?
Good.
Thank you.
Good.
So, yeah, my name's Nick.
I'm in Salt Lake.
Sorry here.
My wife and I have lived all around the world.
I went to school in Indiana, graduate school in Boston.
I'm working on another master's degree here in Salt Lake.
And nowhere is my Mormonism more scrutinized than in the United States, and even more particularly here in Utah.
I bet.
I've been a Mormon my entire life.
I love my religion.
And I think this question of Christianity comes back to a fundamental question.
And you brought this up earlier, what is a Christian?
How do we define that?
And I say, if you define Christianity as somebody who adheres to the fourth century Nicene Creed, no, we are not Mormon.
Or we are not Christian.
Excuse me.
If you believe that a Christian is somebody who believes in the divinity of Jesus Christ, then yes, let me say with all the fervor of my soul, we are Christians.
We believe that Jesus Christ is the literal Son of God, that he came to earth to atone for the sins of man.
By believing on him and through him, and only by him can we get to heaven again and live with God as described in the book of John or anywhere in the Bible.
Yes, we believe in Joseph Smith.
We believe he was a prophet.
I do not believe he's divine.
I don't believe that by Joseph Smith I get to heaven.
I believe that by Jesus Christ I do.
Do I believe in the Book of Mormon?
Yes, I do.
The Bible, Ezekiel 37, Isaiah 25, those all speak of additional scripture that will come outside of the Bible or the stick of Isaiah or the staff of Judah.
But that doesn't mean that the one that your guy came up with deserves that kind of regard.
No, and that's for everyone to decide.
Exactly.
Exactly right.
Exactly right.
And let's go with that theme that you've just given us, something that's for everyone to decide.
I hope I've made clear that whether it's actual Mormons or people just wishing to be really expansive in their definition of Christianity, that any follower of Jesus to that ardent level that you very articulately describe, sure, that's Christianity, even if there's another entire book of scripture and a visit to North America by Jesus 1,800 years after his death and all manner of other things that are really, really different.
Sure, still Christianity.
If that's what you're selling, there are those who will buy it, and that's fine.
But if somebody sits down next to you and says, you know, I kind of want to be a little more restrictive in this regard, that as soon as anybody, whether it's Mormons or anybody else, as soon as you take a pretty substantial, if not a departure from, but addition to and derivation from, that which has been for centuries the main guiding focus of what you might call Nicene Creed Christianity, we're going to say that's kind of something else.
Are you followers of Jesus?
Absolutely.
But Christian, not in the strictest sense.
I think they're entitled to that as well.
And then what you have is a disagreement.
I think they're entitled to that without being branded as some level of bigotry or some level of bigot or Mormon hater.
Is that fair?
Sure.
And I just go back and I make, you know, however we want to, maybe we're splitting hairs over this exact definition of Christianity.
And that's okay.
That's what semantics are, is the definition of words.
Sure, I'll do it all day.
I make the comment, and I'm not speaking on behalf of the LDS church, but I have 14 million worldwide members, most of which who don't live in the United States.
I define it as anybody who strictly believes in the divinity of Jesus Christ.
By that definition, Mormons are Christian.
Now, I need to make something clear really quick.
Sure.
The problem is, is we watch Dr. Phil or Oprah or we watch Sister Wives on cable, and we go, oh, they call themselves Mormons.
Me say also, there are about a thousand different branches of Mormonism, and the Mitt Romney, Harry Reed, Donnie Osmond, Gladys Knight Mormon is not that Mormon.
I am not that Mormon.
What are you?
Because that's kind of, because the Mitt Romney, Harry Reed, Osmonds are kind of the mainstream LDS we've all come to be familiar with.
What are you?
That's what I'm saying.
I am a Mitt Romney, Harry Mormon.
Okay, okay, thank you.
As opposed to some folks, as opposed to the Warren Jeffs FLDS outfit, Danny.
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
That's something that gets muddled all the time, and you watch it on TV and they edit it out where the person is just about to explain, like, I'm not a Bible.
Exactly right.
Gee, look, we're out of time.
Exactly right.
Nick, you are great.
And thank you.
Thank you very, very much.
And thanks to everybody up in Salt Lake.
1-800-282-2882-1-800-282-2882.
Let's take our pause now.
We'll come back.
A few more calls on this and various things.
A little more time left in today's Rush Limbaugh show.
Rush is back tomorrow.
In the meantime, Mark Davis from News Talk 820 AM 96.7 FM, WBAP, Dallas, Fort Worth, proud Limbaugh affiliate since 1993.
And the minute the show is over, you know what I'm doing?
Getting in the car, driving about three minutes to the ballpark in Arlington, watch the Rangers try to go up 2-0 on the Detroit Tigers.
God bless everybody up at WJR Detroit.
Just throwing down a little love.
Back in a moment on the EIB Network.
It is the Rush Limbaugh Show for a Monday.
Mark Davis filling in back to your calls.
We are in Lafayette, Louisiana.
Mike, Mark Davis, in for Rush.
How are you?
Oh, Mark.
Hi, Mike.
How are you doing today?
Doing well.
Thank you.
Enjoying your show.
Thanks.
My comment was, or I guess I should say an observation that in most cases, when you hear the mainstream media, which is decidedly left, and of course the left wing that is out there, will not allow any discussion of any sort of politics and government mixed with religion.
Yet when it comes to the DOP candidates, there becomes an anal exam to the nth degree concerning their religion and description of that religion.
Oh, I'll bet you know the answer to this one.
It is because the dominant media culture that would love to see discussions of faith purged from much of the public square is glad to use religion if it can be a wedge between Republican candidates and make Republican candidates look like religious bigots by perhaps not significantly embracing Mormonism as Christianity or by appearing to think less of Mitt Romney because he's a Mormon.
If they can use religion as a tool to bludgeon the Republican field, oh, they'll gladly do it.
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
And I just wanted to point out the hypocrisy, which they continue to point out to us on a daily basis.
Yeah, Mike, thank you.
I appreciate that.
You know, this is not an invalid question.
It's not, I mean, we've just, we've had a pretty good time with it for this entire hour.
And I started it out by answering questions for myself that you may have a different answer for.
What religious test do you have for a candidate?
And my answer was, no, no, Mike, thanks.
I got to scoot.
I appreciate it.
I was off on rant mode.
Appreciate it.
Brief rant mode.
I'm prepared not to care what religion a candidate is as long as that faith does not contain something that I might divine that that candidate would follow off on and go down some strange road.
If you belong to a faith, and I would suggest this of a Jewish candidate, I would suggest it of a Mormon candidate.
There's nothing in either of those faiths that would lead me to go, ooh, can't have that in the Oval Office.
I mean, absolutely not.
There's nothing in either of them.
And I have disagreements, obviously.
I differ with the Mormon faith.
I differ greatly with the Jewish faith on the notion of the role of Jesus as Son of God.
But there's nothing in a Jewish president that I would have to fear.
There's nothing in a Mormon president that I would have to fear.
Not at all.
Now, others may have different feelings about that.
And how does the rest of the field feel about the one guy among them who's a member of the LDS church?
It's a totally fair question.
And you know what?
Here's what I'm going to do.
Free advice.
You ready?
Because everybody gets their drawers in a wad.
Like, oh my God, don't ask me about that.
Oh, my gosh.
I'm going to give you free here, absolutely free, to everybody else in the Republican field.
Here's how to answer the question when it is asked of you.
You ready?
Take notes.
Hit the record button now.
Is Mitt Romney a Christian?
Here's the answer.
Not in the strict sense that I am with the Bible that I use and the faith that I follow.
But I thoroughly recognize that Mormons are followers of Christ and hold Christ in a similar regard, and I have no fundamental theological quarrel with them.
There, see?
Isn't that easy?
Isn't that easy?
There you go.
There you go.
All right.
In Buffalo, and Mark Davis in for Rush, how are you?
Hi, Mark.
I agree with you.
To me, I have no religious test for a candidate.
It doesn't matter what sect or group of their religious ideas come from, as long as they believe that our rights are God-given.
You cannot top the fact that our rights are God-given and that we believe every human is born with those same rights to life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness.
Now, when people argue about this, like the last fellow said, it gives the media something that they can pick at and make us all look like idiots, like we don't know what we're doing.
Essentially, those people are losing sight of the forest for the trees.
In other words, they're looking at one tree and they're missing the whole point that they all believe that our rights are God-given.
That's fair.
The only thing that keeps me, it is the only thing there's a little sentence that occurred to me because you're being so gracious, and I hope it's not to a fault.
I mean, al-Qaeda may believe that rights are God-given, you know what I mean?
But then you went down a specific funnel that was wise, I think, about life, liberty, pursuit of happiness, and things like that.
Yeah, there are a lot of, I think that that's in linear fashion exactly what I was talking about.
There are a lot of faiths that people can have, and we can have religious differences, but the only religious differences that matter, you know, to me, and apparently to you, in a presidential candidate, is is there something in your religion that's going to make you go do wacky things or things that I would vastly disagree with?
And if that answer is no, then that's your religious business and none of mine.
And thank you greatly.
Appreciate it very, very much.
All right.
Tell you what, let's do.
Let's take our pause, actually do it on time, unlike the last hour.
Wow.
And then we'll come back and have a final word or two, maybe three, before we get you off for the rest of your Columbus Day Monday and get Rush back in the EIB chair tomorrow.
I'm Mark Davis in for Rush.
Back in a moment.
Well, just a couple of precious minutes left on the Monday Rush Limbaugh show, and Rush will be back tomorrow.
I know that energizes you.
And it has certainly energized me to spend today in your company.
So as we begin today, I had a little specific love to shout out to some Rush affiliates.
To the good folks of WISN and Milwaukee and KMOX and St. Louis, enjoy that National League Championship Series thing that you guys have going on.
As for me, when this show is over here in about 30 seconds, I'm rolling right across that street right there to the Rangers Ballpark in Arlington and watch my Rangers try to go up 2-0 on the Detroit Tigers.
So to the good people of WJR, it's great to have you guys in town.
The next three are up there at Comerica.
So it's just great to have kind of a middle America feel into postseason baseball, isn't it?
Look at that: Milwaukee, Detroit, St. Louis, and Texas.
It doesn't get more American than that.
So God bless our country and our troops.
And Rush, thank you for the privilege again.
Thanks to Greg Chapin, Mike Mamone, and then Bo and Kit and everybody that makes this such a joy every single time I do it.
I'm just enormously thrilled and enormously grateful.
Rush is back tomorrow.
Have a great rest of your day.
And make sure to check in at rushlimbaugh.com.
Follow me at Twitter on Mark Davis if you want to.
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