Gay Marriage Did Not Turn Election

You know what the morality issues really center around? You know, gay marriage is a part of it, but it was only on the ballot in 11 states. It wasn’t on the ballot in all 50 states. Gay marriage is a factor, there’s no question, but it’s the not the thing about which this election was won, and by saying this they’re trying to deny that the war on terror had anything to do with this or the war on Iraq had anything to do with this. The president doesn’t have a mandate on these things, the president just scared people that the gays are taking over America — be on the guard for that, folks, because that’s what’s happening. But they’re misreading this on purpose. The real moral question, I think, centered around mostly things like the trash that the people see on TV every afternoon, not just at night.

I think, when you get outside of the media capitals, New York and Los Angeles, San Francisco, the east coast liberal establishments, and you get out there into the red states, you’ll find a total objection to the kind of garbage that’s on Oprah some days, you’ll find a total objection to the garbage that’s in soap operas. Some people say it’s soft porn. You’ll find an objection to the fact that now various words of profanity are commonly used in prime-time television before kids go to bed. It’s this kind of stuff that is important to a lot of red state families as any other single issue. You know, morality has a lot of different elements to it. So just beware of the press trying to zero in on this and say this election was all about gay marriage.

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RUSH: Centerburg, Ohio, Stewart, welcome to the EIB Network.

CALLER: Good morning, Rush. Mega dittos from the great state of Ohio.

RUSH: Thank you, sir.

CALLER: I’m absolutely honored to talk to you.

RUSH: Appreciate that.

CALLER: I just want to make a quick point about what you were talking about a minute ago about the anti-gay bigoted Republicans turned out only for gay marriage because we were anti-gay marriage.

RUSH: Yeah.

CALLER: All of the gay marriage ballots failed, I believe, in roughly about 62-38%.

RUSH: Yeah.

CALLER: Yet Bush only one 51 or 52 to 48.

RUSH: Right.

CALLER: So where did all that 12 percent or so go? We must have a bunch of anti-bigoted gay Democrats —

RUSH: Wait a minute. I realize there’s some knee-jerk words in what I said. I didn’t — please don’t misunderstand me about this, because I don’t want people to start portraying this incorrectly when we start talking about it to each other. In the first place, what I said is the press is attempting to say that the majority of Bush’s victory, the main reason they’re not talking about number of votes, or the main reason. You understand there’s no truth in this. So don’t go where you can find evidence for it, there is no evidence, they’re just saying it because they refuse to accept the fact they lost. They’re still trying to portray the Republicans and the president as a bunch of bigots, and homophobes, and racists, sexists, the same old playbook stuff. They haven’t learned a thing, folks, not yet. They’re still the same old people. They refuse to admit that they’re Humpty-Dumpty in a million pieces, and they’ve got to put themselves back together. They are not there. They lost because you’re a bigot, they lost because of this gay marriage thing. They’re trying to say this is an election about homosexuality, homophobia, gays and marriages and so forth. And by the way, it’s one tactic to defend one of their constituency groups and make sure the donations keep coming in. All politics is about money. Money the mother’s milk of politics, and there’s a huge donor group out there, particularly the militant, left-leaning gays.

But here’s an even better stat for you. I was reading the, I think it’s a Washington, D.C., gay publication, The Blade. I went to their website today. Bush got the same percentage — this is all you need to know — Bush got the same percentage of votes from the gay community in 2004 as he got in 2000, 20%. Kerry got 27%. I mean it’s not 20-80, it’s 20-27. Yeah, Kerry got 27% of the gay vote, Bush got 20%. That’s what this column said at The Blade. But forget what Kerry got. Forget what Kerry got. The fact of the matter is that Bush did not lose gay community votes in this race.
So the idea here that this is a single-issue campaign, there are any number of ways to refute it, but you can refute it with facts if you want, but this is one of those things when people start telling you, folks, the way to refute this is don’t accept the premise. They’re trying to establish a false premise based on this supposed exit poll data on morality being the number 1 issue, even more than Iraq.
Let me tell you this. ABC, the ABC/Washington Post poll in one of their pre-election polls, I forget which one, maybe it was an exit poll. I’ll have to find this in the story. Maybe it was the exit poll, these are forms, pieces of paper, the exit pollsters fill out or the voters, they’re not interviewed personally. They’re given a two-sided single page form to fill out, and in one instance the question of Iraq and the war on terror was not an option. These are multiple-choice questions, in essence, on this form, wasn’t even an option. If you were a voter and you were being exit polled, one of the reasons for your vote could not be in this poll, and it might have been a pre-election poll, I’m not sure which, but things are being done here to deemphasize the president’s strength on the war on terror and Iraq, despite this overwhelming victory.

So when this whole business comes up, don’t accept the premise, just tell ’em the premise is being concocted by people who are trying to diminish the real meaning of the president’s victory here. If you want to cite a stat you can go ahead and say, hey, gay marriage was defeated in all these 11 states with a 60-40 margin, 58-42 margin. Bush was 51-48. Doesn’t add up. Then say he didn’t lose any gay votes this time and the election of 2000, if you want to do that. But don’t accept the premise. That’s one of the greatest ways of defeating the left in an argument, just don’t accept their premises, it just puts you on defensive. If you accept a phony premise, you’re trying to defend something phony. It’s crazy. Don’t waste time with it.
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