RUSH: During the break, I had an e-mail. “Rush, in all of this talk about gay marriage, I haven’t heard what you think about it.” I thought about that. I asked myself, “Is my position on this really not known?” Snerdley, are you curious as to my position on gay marriage? (interruption) Well, let me try it this way. A friend of mine sent me a note, actually, and it’s got some things in it that I think are on point. As usual, what we’re talking about, again, with the left is the language.
The language game, the left really excels at changing the language to benefit them politically, and they do it in such a way that a lot of people on our side have no idea what’s happened until it’s too late and the issue is already lost, which this issue is. This issue is lost. I don’t care what the Supreme Court does, this is now inevitable — and it’s inevitable because we lost the language on this. I mentioned the other day that I’ve heard people talk about “opposite-sex marriage,” or you might have had heard people say “traditional marriage.”
You might have heard people say “hetero-marriage.” I maintain to you that we lost the issue when we started allowing the word “marriage” to be bastardized and redefined by simply adding words to it, because marriage is one thing, and it was not established on the basis of discrimination. It wasn’t established on the basis of denying people anything. “Marriage” is not a tradition that a bunch of people concocted to be mean to other people with. But we allowed the left to have people believe that it was structured that way.
I would go so far as to say that there are some people who think marriage is an evil Republican idea, simply because they’re the ones that want to hold on to it. So far as I’m concerned, once we started talking about “gay marriage,” “traditional marriage,” “opposite-sex marriage,” “same-sex marriage,” “hetero-marriage,” we lost. It was over. It was just a matter of time. This is the point a friend of mine sent me a note about.
“Once you decide to modify the word ‘marriage,’ then the other side has won, or at least they’re 90% of the way home. The best thing that ‘marriage’ had going for it was basically what they teach you the first day in law school: ‘If you hang a sign on a horse that says “cow,” it does not make it a cow,’ although today it might.” That’s where we are: 5 + 5 could = 11, if it works for the Democrats. A cow could be a horse, if it works for the Democrats. The thing is, discrimination has never been a part of marriage.
It evolved as the best way to unite men and women in raising a family and in cohabitating a life. It’s not perfect. The divorce rate’s what it is. But it evolved with a purpose. It was not a creation of a bunch of elitists wanting to deny people a good time. It was not created as something to deny people “benefits,” but it became that once we started bastardizing the definition. But discrimination is not an issue, and it never was. No one sensible is against giving homosexuals the rights of contract or inheritance or hospital visits.
There’s nobody that wants to deny them that. The issue has always been denying them a status that they can’t have, by definition. By definition — solely, by definition — same-sex people cannot be married. So instead of maintaining that and holding fast to that, we allowed the argument to be made that the definition needed to change, on the basis that we’re dealing with something discriminatory, bigoted, and all of these mystical things that it’s not and never has been.
Let me give you an example.
If I were to say, “The Obama family has more rights than I do. Obama’s family, which hasn’t been elected to anything, get millions of dollars in government benefits. They are globally admired in a way that I’m not. My self-esteem is wounded. The world loves the Obamas and they don’t love me. Therefore, I want to be considered an Obama. From now on, I want to be an Obama so that people respect me and love me — and so that I, too, can take a vacation every month on a big 747.
“So that I, too, can have access to the federal Treasury, I want to be an Obama. I want to be Rush Hudson Obama the First. It’s not fair that I can’t be an Obama. Look at all the benefits the Obamas have! By the way, the Obamas, only one of them got elected to anything, but look at all the benefits they get that I don’t get. Look at all the admiration that they get that they don’t get, and look at all the media fawning they get I don’t get.
“Don’t tell me that I can’t be an Obama just because I’m not an Obama! Just because I’m not a member of the family doesn’t mean I can’t be an Obama! I want to be an Obama, and I want to have all the benefits Obama gets. I want to be loved. I want to be rich without having to use any of my own money. I want to be able to blame everybody else for what’s going wrong and I want to be able to get away with not being blamed for anything. I really, really want to be an Obama, and they won’t let me!
“They’re discriminating against me!
“Being an Obama would make me happy. The Declaration says we have the right to ‘life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.’ Well, I would be happy if I was an Obama — and they won’t let me be an Obama! So the law has to change. The law has to change so that I can become an Obama. Just change the definition of what a family is, and I could be an Obama. It’s easy. The whole definition of a family is perverted in this country. Why can’t everybody be a Rockefeller? Why can’t everybody be a Kennedy?
“Why can’t everybody be an Obama?
“I want to be an Obama!
“That’d make me happy. I’d probably be a loving person if I were an Obama!”
Well, this is what we’re hearing about marriage.
“I want to be happy. It’s not affecting anybody else. It wouldn’t matter to anybody. Pursuit of happiness, love. Don’t tell me that I already have all the same legal rights as Michelle has. That’s not good enough. I want to ‘feel’ like an Obama, and so the law has to change so that I can say, ‘I am an Obama.’ And if you think that that’s absurd, if you think that my wanting to be an Obama for all the reasons that I’ve stated are wrong — and if you think that my feelings are being hurt because I can’t be an Obama and if you think my being offended because I can’t be an Obama — you’re a bigot!
“You’re a hater. You’re trying to deny me something I want that wouldn’t hurt anybody else. It wouldn’t affect anybody else. I just want to be an Obama, and the fact that this society isn’t liberated enough and is not kind enough to let me be an Obama means it has to change even if I have to take this all the way the Supreme Court. ‘But wait, Rush. You’re not an Obama.’ It doesn’t matter! I want to be one, and it’s this stupid country’s problem and fault that I can’t. I’m unhappy, and I’m miserable, and I’m discriminated against. Look at all I’m missing out on!
“Really, folks!
“Look at all that I am not getting because I can’t be an Obama.
“So I think the law has to change, and I think we have to change the definition of a family so that I can be an Obama.”
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: No, I’m just illustrating absurdity by being absurd. Just trying to point out what happens if we lose definitions, which is why we are where we are here. People refuse to stand fast on the definition of something.