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March 30, 2015 - Rush Limbaugh Program
37:18
March 30, 2015, Monday, Hour #2
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Yes, of course it's frustrating.
What are you gonna do, though?
All you can do is tell people the truth, and then that's it.
I mean, I can't assemble everybody that lives in this country and put them in a room and tell them the truth and have them leave thinking they know it all.
I mean, I would love for that to be able to happen, but I can't do it.
Greetings and welcome back.
Great to have you, Rush Limbaugh, the EIB network of the Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies.
It's frustrating, folks.
It really is frustrating.
I this this whole thing with the Religious Freedom Restoration Act and what happened in Indiana.
I'm not kidding.
On the one side here we have facts, truth, history, context.
Over here we've got something not related to that at all that is sufficing as the news of the day on this.
So all I can do is come here and give you the facts, give you the truth of the history of this and what this means, and beyond that, if if the uh primary conveyors of information in this country are going to abandon that and ignore it, then there's nothing that can be done about it.
You just throw it open and you uh you have to trust that at some point the truth will out.
Now, let me, by the way, greetings and and welcome back, 800 282-2882, if you want to be on the on the program.
Let me let me continue with the history of this.
Because I want you to realize here that that what Indiana has done is they're just the latest.
They're not setting any trends here, and they certainly are not blazing any trails.
In one sense, they are they're just the next in line.
They're Johnny come lately.
Again now, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act 1993, which gave religious objectors a statutory presumptive entitlement to exemption from generally applicable laws.
Let me translate that for you.
In 1993, Congress enacted the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which gave people the religious right to invoke their religious principles and be exempt from applicable laws in the process, if they were in fact invoking religious principles.
That's all that Indiana has done here, has simply affirmed that on a state basis, which many other states have done before.
When Bill Clinton signed this bill back in 1993, let me read to you what he said.
The power of God, the power of God is such that even in the legislative process, miracles can happen.
That's what Bill Clinton said.
Kid you not.
Now, what it was about back then was letting Indian kids smoke peyote.
That's all it was about.
I brought up peyote for a reason.
That's what the religious Freedom Restoration Act was all about was peyote.
Indians, Native Americans, claiming that they were exempt from the law, making it illegal because it was part of their religion.
And the U.S. Congress affirmed that unanimously in the House, and by 97 to 3 in the Senate.
Even after the Restoration of Freedom Act, many members of the Native American church still had issues using peyote in their ceremonies, which led to the religious Freedom Restoration Act.
And there were some amendments to it in 1994, which state this the use, the possession or transportation of peyote by an Indian for bona fide traditional ceremony purposes in connection with the practice of a traditional Indian religion is lawful and shall not be prohibited by the U.S. or any state.
No Indian shall be penalized or discriminated against on the basis of such use, possession, or transportation.
And Bill Clinton said, while signing the uh Restoration of Religious Freedom Act, he said the power of God is such that even in the legislative process, miracles can happen.
And this was about peyote.
Just to show you how things change, it's a Democrat president, admittedly in his first year, invoking God, that I mean, God is perceived to be the problem now with the with the current Democrat Party.
This is an example of a law coming back to bite you.
But everybody back then was so eager for the Indian vote and so eager to be on the side of the angels where a minority was concerned.
That when the India say you can't take away our peyote, it's part of our religion.
They were granted exemption from the law.
That's all that's happened in Indiana.
Now, folks, look, I could spend all three hours on this if I wanted to.
The bottom line is the facts are the facts.
The law is the law.
And that's on one hand.
On the other hand, none of that matters to the news of the day.
The news of the day is not related to facts, history, context whatsoever.
The Daily Soap Opera is such that the narrative today is that once again another Democrat minority is being besmirched and impugned and denied liberty and freedom, and it is our beloved gay and lesbian brothers and sisters.
And we're not gonna put up with it.
We've had enough of this since this country was founded.
There's been too much discrimination, and we're not gonna put up with it anymore.
And so now gay groups and lesbian gay bisexual genderal transit, whatever groups they're announcing, they're all getting out of Indiana, they're gonna cancel business meetings they had, conventions, all that, they're scramming.
They're leaving.
Now you might think, Russ, this is an awfully fine point.
It's an awfully fine line, isn't it?
Well, it wasn't with peyote.
It wasn't when other states came up with their own version of the law, which has happened many times since.
Ready for this?
Since 1997, and in some measure, even prior to that, about a dozen states have enacted similar state-level religious freedom restoration acts as to state law, and about a dozen more states have interpreted their state constitutions to follow.
The court's previous rulings.
Indiana's not alone here, but at least 25 states, 26 states, right along with them.
Which means half of the states, as we sit here today, have their own religious freedom restoration act laws, or else they interpret their laws to follow the Supreme Court previous rulings, which would now include hobby lobby.
Hobby lobby is exactly what this was about.
Have people already forgotten hobby lobby?
Yes, they have, conveniently so.
Therefore, the rule now is that there is a religious exemption as to federal statutes under the religious Freedom Restoration Act, and as to state statutes in about half the states that have state religious freedom restoration acts or state constitutional exemption uh regimes or or laws,
religious objectors in those states may demand exemptions from laws that substantially burden the objectors' practice, meaning the religious persons' practice of their religion, which the government must now grant unless it can show that applying the law is the least restrictive means of serving a compelling uh government interest.
So, what exactly is so controversial about this?
The bottom line, what is so controversial about the religious freedom restoration act that Indiana has passed?
And the answer is nothing.
It's just another way to gin up controversy about gay rights, which is the cause celeb of the day, and particularly with millennials.
And to also keep the donor base churning.
I mean, this is gonna cause Democrat gay donors to be sending money to the Democrat Party like never before, because the objective is the world is gunning for American gays, and only the Democrat Party can stop it.
And that's not what's happened here.
The religious freedom restoration act, let's let's go back to its origins.
Peyote had nothing to do with gays, it had nothing to do with lesbians, transgenders, bisexuals, none of that.
It had to do with the Indians' version of pot.
And their claim that it was part of their religious ceremonies.
And guess what?
The government found in their favor.
So now they're exempt from whatever laws everybody else has to obey on peyote.
And then gay marriage came along.
I'm really jumping forward here in years.
Gay marriage came along.
And gay couples purposely targeted certain businesses to challenge this.
In Denver, if you're getting married and you're gay, there are plenty of places you can go that'll bake a cake for you.
But you pick the place that won't to give yourself a cause, and you gin everything up, and then you claim you're being discriminated against.
And then everybody piles on the bakery that will not bake a cake for a gay wedding because it violates their religion.
And the bad guys happen to be the religious people who refuse to violate their religion, so they won't bake the cake.
Everybody jumps on them.
And in the case of what happened, the bake shop in Denver, they're out of business.
They lost their business.
They were so tarred and fettered, so stigmatized that they lost their business.
And this is by design.
There's any number of places in Denver the gay couple could have gone, I'm sure.
But what people refuse to acknowledge or admit is that everything with the left is politics.
Everything is an opportunity to advance the agenda.
There are plenty of gay couples that wouldn't want any part of this.
If they're going to get married, find a place that'll make them a cake.
Go there, have the wedding, be happy, have the reception, be happy, you know, go wherever Sachs Fifth Avenue to fill the registry and go adopt a kid and just live.
Others say, aha, we've got a chance here to attack the Republicans, attack conservatives, and advance a liberal agenda.
Let's go find a bake shop that won't serve us.
And they do.
25 states already have things like this on the books.
Indiana is just the latest to come along.
And it's because the people of Indiana have determined that religious people are the ones that are being attacked and discriminated against when you get right down to it.
But see, that's not deemed to be possible.
Because Christians, religion people are deemed to be in the majority, and the majority cannot possibly be discriminated against.
It's simply not possible.
Just like a man cannot be raped.
No matter what happens, it can't be raped.
Not possible.
And a Christian is a majority member, therefore can't be discriminated against.
Christians can't that Christians are the discriminators.
Christians are the oppressors because they're the majority.
And if you want to know what modern-day Democrat Party politics is about, it's attacking every majority, real or perceived, that exists and claim a grievance because of it.
And this is how you tear down institutions and traditions that have defined a culture and society in a country.
And that's the objective here.
So 25 states have fought back.
We're going to stand up for the people who have their religion.
We're going to stand up for the people who stand behind their morality and so forth, and we're not going to sit by and made them be forced to act in violation of their religious principles.
And when that happens, then here comes the left, armed for battle to tear down anybody that's involved in either the Christian business here and or its defenders.
You remember Chick-fil-A.
I mean, these stories are fairly common and fairly recent.
Let's go to the audio sound bites.
Again, I mentioned that Mike Pence is the governor of uh of Indiana.
He was on this week with Stephanopoulos yesterday, and the drive-by is saying it was a horrible interview.
This guy just embarrassed himself.
He should quit.
He should resign.
This is one of the worst interviews we have ever seen.
This guy was clearly over his head and out of his league, had no business being on TV.
It was such an embarrassment.
Let's listen.
Stephanopoulos said yes or no.
If a florist in Indiana refuses to serve a gay couple at their wedding, is that legal now in Indiana?
This is where this debate has gone with with misinformation and it's just a question, sir.
Yes or no?
Well, there's been shameless rhetoric about my state and about this law and about its intention all over the internet.
The religious Freedom Restoration Act has been on the books for more than 20 years.
It does not apply, George, to disputes between individuals unless government action is involved.
The issue here is, you know, is tolerance a two-way street or not.
Indiana steps forward to protect the constitutional rights and privileges of freedom of religion for people of faith and families of faith in our state.
And this avalanche of intolerance that's been poured on our state is just outrageous.
Now he's exactly right about that, but he's not allowed to say that because as a white Republican, he's not a minority, he cannot speak as one.
He cannot talk about defending people who are the victims of an avalanche of intolerance, because it is not possible to be intolerant of a majority.
In fact, it's almost a calling.
You are almost required.
If you're going to be a good liberal, if you're going to be a good Democrat, a good leftist, you must explicitly be intolerant of Christians and of majorities.
But majorities cannot, I mean, you you can't you can't ever say a majority is discriminated against or a member of a majority, and you can't ever say that members of the majority are victims of intolerance because they're the evil ones.
They're the ones doing all these things that need to be fixed.
And Pence's point is, wait a minute.
Well, he's had many points here.
One of his points is we're standing up for people who are being discriminated against by being forced by government to violate the religious principles.
That's where the law gets involved.
And if the government's going to get behind people and demand that others have their religion violated, we are standing up to defend that.
And the left says that's not legitimate.
Those people do not deserve defense because they are members of a majority.
And as such, a majority can never be discriminated against.
They're the ones that do the discriminating.
And a majority can never be the victim of intolerance because the majorities are the ones who are intolerant.
after this.
You know, this is a great example of what we do every day on this program.
And I've mentioned this countless times previous.
Yes.
Every day we're mind our own business here.
We're bothering nobody, just going about our business.
We wake up every day, start getting ready for the day, and we find out that people or things or institutions that we love, respect, and hold dear, are under assault.
And so I come here and defend them.
And that's exactly what's happening here today with this business going on in Indiana.
I'm attacking nobody.
I'm impugning nobody.
I'm simply reacting to a bunch of lies, diss and misinformation in the drive-by media, in what is probably a meager attempt, meager effort at getting the truth out there against this avalanche and assault of lies, half-truths, distortions, and propaganda that the Democrat Party and the media are responsible for.
And that's what we do.
This is a classic illustration, minding your own business.
We don't come here with the idea of attacking people every day.
We just watch what's going on, see ourselves under assault for the most part daily, and see the need to defend it.
Now, where we are in America right now is, as far as the left is concerned, as far as the Democrat Party is concerned, is concerned, the media as well, there is no righteous majority.
Every majority, in terms of the way they treat them, report on them, act, behave.
Every majority is an oppressor.
Every be it a racial majority, a numerical majority, be it a religious majority, whatever majorities are the enemy.
And this can be traced all the way back to the founding documents and the founding of this country.
It was founded by a bunch of oppressors that made up the majority of the day, and the minorities of the day And the voiceless and the speechless and the thirsty and the hungry were shut out and never have had a voice, and this is about correcting all of those hundreds of years ago errors and mistakes.
But at the root of it is the Christian majority are a bunch of oppressors.
The white majority, bunch of oppressors.
Any other majority, if it has any kind of political relevance or ramification, is automatically guilty.
Which necessitates all of this good intention, well-intentioned, corrective action brought by the left, which is supposedly shrouded in justice, and decency, and goodness,
and good intentions, and all of that, when all that's really going on is a concerted strategic effort to tear apart all of the things, the good things that have made this country what it is.
Facts, truth, reality, be damned.
It doesn't matter.
We've got a manufactured crisis, an agenda item made to order, and it's a standalone.
As far as the media today is concerned, Indiana just passed a law legalizing discrimination against gay people, and that we must stop.
That's not what happened by any stretch, but that's what they're telling people.
Do a man on the street interview and find out how many idiots think that's true.
And the full statement of Bill Clinton now, when he signed the federal religious freedom restoration act into law.
This is 1993.
Bill Quinton said, So today I ask you to also think of that.
We are a people of faith.
We have been so secure in that faith that we have enshrined in our Constitution protection for people who profess no faith.
And good for us for doing so.
That is what the First Amendment's all about.
But let us never believe that the freedom of religion imposes on any of us some responsibility to run from our convictions.
Let us instead respect one another's faiths.
Fight to the death to preserve the right of every American to practice whatever convictions he or she has, but bring our values back to the table of American discourse to heal our troubled land.
So again, this was about peyote.
That was Bill Clinton when he signed the religious freedom restoration act into law.
Now the people that are in the process here of making news out of what happened in Indiana, acting righteously indignant and protesting it from now to the end of the day.
What has what really has them ticked off, what really has them bummed out about the Indiana law and about the religious freedom restoration act in total right now is that this is how private citizens can defend themselves against harassment and intimidation by gay activists.
It's the technique that has been drummed up, it's been created by the Democrats.
The Democrats created this whole thing for peyote, and now it's coming back to bite them.
See, at the center of this, folks, is religion.
And a hate for it, a fear of it.
The left wants no part of organized religion.
That's why global warming exists and all these other issues they take the place of organized religion.
And they're doing their best to tear it down.
That's what the assaults in the Catholic Church are about, never-ending, constant assaults on Christianity in general are about.
Because Christianity is morality, they view it as judgmentalism.
They view it as definitive, this is what's right, this is what's wrong.
They don't want any part of that.
They don't want to have to be conscious of right or wrong.
They don't want to be reminded of right and wrong.
They don't want it in their own consciousness.
right and wrong.
They don't want because it's all shackles.
Morality is shackles.
The idea of right and wrong shackles.
Limits on freedom and behavior and so forth.
And so there's been a concerted effort by interest groups on the left, not just gay activists, but uh a whole bunch of different fringe groups on the left to attack religion and what it stands for and the people of it.
And so now here comes this Indiana law on the on the trail of Hobby Lobby and Chick-fil-A and a number of other examples, and it it turns out now that private citizens are able to use a law enacted by Democrats to protect themselves from the militant leftist agenda.
So that's got to be torn down, and that's what's in the process of happening here.
And that's why the mischaracterization, misrepresentation, disinformation, misinformation.
It's why facts, history, reality, truth, and consequences don't have any play here.
Here's more from Mike Pence.
Stephanopoulos said when you say governor that that tolerance is a two-way street.
Does that mean that Christians who want to refuse service or people of any other faith who want to refuse service to gays and lesbians, that it's now legal in the state of Indiana?
It's just a simple yes or no question.
Why wouldn't you answer it?
This isn't about disputes between individuals.
It's about government overreach.
Bill Clinton signed the religious freedom restoration act in 1993.
Then State Senator, I bet you do.
Then State Senator Barack Obama voted for it when he was in the state Senate of Illinois, the very same language.
Uh and the online attacks against the people of our state, I'm just not going to stand for it.
None of that matters to Stephanopoulos.
It's not that all he cares about.
This is Stephanopoulos is once again, you may as well go back and put in in Pence's place Mitt Romney.
And the question, do you think?
Do you believe in in contraception?
You think state-sponsored country and Romney said, What?
What are you what are you talking about?
It's a yes or no question, Governor.
Do you believe in contraception or do you believe in stopping?
Do you believe in preventing and Romney had no idea what was all about?
It was clear it was not an issue anywhere.
And Stephanopoulos is in he inserted it and finally got an answer from Romney.
It didn't matter what Romney said.
When he answered it, that's when the war on women began.
That's when it was created.
And that's what Stephanopoulos is trying to do here.
Stephanopoulos was with Clinton in 1993 when Clinton made the statement that I just read to you.
When everybody was celebrating this back in 1993, because they were protecting a minority against the ravages of the Christian and white majority in America, trying to deny our native Indian brothers and sisters their religious rights by denying them the use of peyote.
And Clinton and the Democrats unanimously came to their rescue, said, You want to use peyote in your religion?
By God, you go right ahead.
We're going to affirm your religious freedom.
We're going to refirm your religious rights to do it, and nobody can stop you.
Well, it's kind of tit for tat now.
And 25 states have signed on to it in one way or another.
Stephanopoulos wasn't through.
He finally said, Well, that may be.
Um we've tried to be responsible.
Let's talk about the media.
Uh one suggested fix to your law would say that this chapter to law does not establish or eliminate a defense to a claim under any federal, state, or local law protecting civil rights or preventing discrimination.
Is that the kind of clarification that you're talking about here?
George, look, we're not going to change the law.
Okay.
We're not going to change this law.
It has been tested in courts for more than two decades.
There's a lot of People in this country who are concerned about government overreach into their religious liberty, and I'm one of them, and I stand with them.
Imagine that.
That's all you have to do is you just stand up to them.
He's still governor today.
Mike Pence is still breathing.
I'm told he had breakfast and lunch, and he's gonna have dinner tonight.
Yeah, the media may be targeting him and the media may hate him, but he's still alive and he's still living to tell the tale.
Stood up to him.
But he's exactly on point here.
What this is about, let's go back to the case that everybody knows.
And that is a gay couple walks into a bakery in Denver and says, We're getting married, and we want you to make the cake.
And the people that own the bakery say, sorry, take your business elsewhere.
We don't believe in gay marriage.
Our religion forbids it, and so we're not going to bake your cake.
The people didn't go somewhere else.
They went to the government.
They went and gave it, got they sued and they demanded that the government come in and force the bakery to bake them a cake.
That is a violation of their religious rights.
That's a that's making them violate their religious beliefs.
First Amendment says we have total religious freedom.
Hello, peyote.
And that's what Pence is talking about.
That's been the game.
The game has been to find bakeries like the one in Denver.
Walk in there knowing full well that you're walking into a an establishment owned by religious people that disagree with you and have them refuse to serve you or bake the cake in this case, and then you walk out and you go to the government.
State government, federal government, doesn't matter, and you make the government make that little business bake that cake.
That is the government overstepping and violating the Constitution.
Henceforth, we have the religious freedom restoration act.
It's actually should be unnecessary.
It says right there in the First Amendment what we're talking about here.
The fact that we have to come up with another law to reaffirm what's already in the Constitution is bad enough.
That's on one hand.
And then over here, on the other hand, is the news of the day, which has none of the truth in it whatsoever.
Okay, take a break, and we'll get back to your phone calls and in the next hour, details of how this Iranian nuclear deal predictably falling apart.
So don't go away.
International Business Times in the UK.
The co-pilot of the German Wings Airbus A320, Andreas Lubitz, trawled suicide in gay porn websites before the crash.
27-year-old co-pilot Andreas Lubitz, believed to have deliberately crashed the German Wings flight 4U, 9525 plane killing 149 passengers trawled gay porn websites and sites relating to suicide.
Investigators have revealed.
He also feared losing his eyesight.
He was suffering from depression.
A police source in Dusseldorf, sorry, Dusseldorf, revealed, quote, we have a team disassembling his computer and that of his girlfriend, because the information we received was that he trawled the dark side of the web, visiting, among other things, sites containing gay porn suicide themes and sexual perversions.
What's that got to do with anything?
Small mountain of drugs believed to be antidepressants were found at his apartment.
Aren't suicide and suicidal thoughts listed as side effects to many antidepressants?
Have you ever looked?
Have you ever looked at the side effects list of some of these men uh the depressants?
It takes that page that has them all unfold it ten times to read all the potential side effects.
Here's uh here's Mike in Houston, as we head back to the phones.
Mike, I'm glad you waited.
Welcome to the program, sir.
Thank you, Russ.
I have a couple of questions for George Stephanopoulos.
Yeah.
Um, I'd like to ask George, why why is it up to Governor Pence to remind the listeners and viewers that uh the hobby the hobby lobby uh willing in June of last year.
And why is it up why is it up to Governor Pence to remind to remind George Stephanopoulos who sat in the White House, who was in the White House in '93.
Why is it up to Mike Pence to remind George uh about Bill Clinton's comments and statement that you read from 1993?
Why why is that have to be George uh Frank Pence's defense?
That's a journalist job, and I guess this is the way.
This is the way that George Stephanopoulos makes a difference.
His way of making a difference, Ross.
Not only that, he's not a journalist.
That's the point.
He didn't go to journalism school.
Not that that matters anymore, but he's not a journalist.
He is a Democrat Party activist that has uh a job at ABC News and wears a couple of different hats there.
He is a Democrat Party activist.
He was in the Bill Clinton war room with James Carvel.
He's a Democrat Party activist.
Of this, there can be no dispute.
But we are to believe that one day, George Stephanopoulos decided to take that hat off and walk inside the revolving door at ABC News.
And the moment he got inside, he was overwhelmed with objectivity.
It was like he walked in there and a cloud, a mist enveloped every pore of Stephanopoulos' small buddy.
And objectivity and fairness permeated everybody orifice, including in the brain, and Stephanopoulos was no longer a Democrat Party activist, which he had been for decades.
Stephanopoulos was no longer interested in advancing a Democrat Party agenda because once he entered the revolving door at ABC News, he became automatically Walter Cronkite Jr.
He became Edward R. Murrow.
He became a journalist, and he forgot everything he ever cared about.
He walked up to the coat check, and instead of checking his coat, he checked his life experiences.
He put them all there at the coat check and walked into the newsroom as a totally disinterested, uninterested in the outcome of events, objective newsman.
This is what we're to believe.
That's the magic that happens.
A Democrat Party activist.
The instant he gets inside ABC News, sheds all of that, and immediately becomes a fair and balanced and objective newsman.
And I submit to you that that's not what happens at all.
It's a Democrat Party activist that works daily and actively advancing the Democrat Party and leftist agenda under the guise of being a fair and reasonable and unbiased and objective newsman.
Those are great questions.
Why is it up to Mike Pence to point out the historical context and truth and the facts of what the Indiana law is?
Why does Mike Pence have to go and defend allegations that are lies?
Why does the governor of Indiana have to show up anywhere and defend a bunch of questions which actually are just political talking points?
The journalist's job is to know all of this stuff and to ask different questions.
But that's not what ABC News is.
It's not what NBC News is.
We all know this now.
Here's uh Dave in Indianapolis.
It's great to have you with us, sir.
Thank you.
Hello.
Religious freedom ditto rush.
Thank you, sir.
Uh this is nothing more.
And and I'm here in Indy and have been watching this for the last week and and over the weekend particularly.
If you saw the social media here in Indianapolis, it's it's absolutely horrible.
Well, I know.
I know.
I want to make a few points, and I'll make them quickly.
Um, but this is nothing short of cultural card check.
That's what's going on here.
And there are hands behind the scenes.
It's not an accident that they've selected Indiana, I don't think, and to to make this the target of this effort that the this push they've got going.
There, there are unseen hands behind the scenes who are turning this uh this bigot bigot spigot, if you will, the spigot of bigotry or whatever you want to call it but there are hands behind the scenes during this and there are a couple blogs here that have done a very good job of an expose on the timeline uh of what I would say is really religious bigotry but the two blogs Ogden on Politics and Advanced Indiana have done an excellent job of of exposing what these folks are up to.
And the 93 bill that was passed by the feds uh the the uh the opponents to the current legislation RFRA here in Indiana uh should know that they're in league with people like Robert Byrd, Jesse Helms, and another Senator Matthews uh from Tennessee, two Democrats, one Republican, two of those people are considered to be racial separatists.
And I I think the the idea that this small minority, which really, you know, using I have to stop you.
I'm sorry.
I ho I was hoping you could conclude on time, but I've got to go to a break I can't miss.
Okay, so what's going on in Iran?
Well we'll delve into that when we uh when we get back.
And if you're still on hold and you want to talk more about what's going on in Indiana and the religious freedom restoration act, hang in there.
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