RUSH: Up next is Francis from Nashville. Francis was here late on Friday, Open Line Friday, and we didn’t have a chance to connect, so we called back, and we’ve got Francis. Hi, Francis, how are you?

CALLER: Hey there, Rush. You know, my belief in your brilliance is not based only on the fact you agree with me 96.7% of the time, but your imitation of Bill Clinton is even better than mine, so there you go.

RUSH: Well, thank you. I appreciate you saying so. That’s saying something.

CALLER: Gay marriage. See, here’s my take on this. You said on Friday that less than 2% of the adult population is gay.

RUSH: Yeah.

CALLER: And even smaller number than that wants to get married.

RUSH: Right.

CALLER: So I say, who cares? What do we care if some very tiny percentage of the population wants to get married to each other? How could it possibly be a threat to traditional or heterosexual marriage just because a few gay people want to get married? That is the first thing. I don’t understand why anybody really cares about it. The second thing is the bakery. Suppose, you know, the gay couple goes in and the baker says, “I’m not gonna bake you a cake because on religious grounds I don’t think gay people should get married.” So the next couple comes in, and it’s a black man and a white woman. They say, “We’re getting married,” and the baker says, “Well, I’m sorry, but my religion says that if God wanted more than two races, he would have made them.” If the baker has to sell the cake to the interracial couple, what’s the difference?

RUSH: It goes back to your first question. For millennia marriage has been an institution about specific things. It has not been an arrangement of convenience in the here and now to satisfy surface, specious desires. Marriage has been a commitment. You can say it works or doesn’t. You can say that it’s not always perfect. I don’t care how you want to rip it, but marriage is what it is. Marriage is a union of a man and a woman which has, whether you want to admit it, agree to it or not, one purpose: to propagate the race, to create bloodlines and family lines, family being the keyword, for the express purpose of giving people the best opportunity to be raised in a good way so as to be prepared to meet life as an adult.

That’s what marriage is. The definition of the word is a union of a man and a woman. It is exclusive, it is monogamous. Not everybody obeys, I understand that, but institutions are not rendered useless simply because some people fail them. An institution is what it is. Just because some people do not follow through it doesn’t mean the institution is flawed. If you’re gonna come along because desires of the moment leave people to think that they are excluded from this and this is unfair and so we’re going to redefine what marriage is, that’s the problem people have with it. Marriage is a specific thing and it has specific purposes.

Now, your question, hey, it’s only 1%, 2% of the population. What is the big deal?

It is a recognition that the institution of marriage, defined through the millennia, has a definitive and worthwhile, uplifting, demonstrably proven to be uplifting, purpose. You can go anywhere you want and look at results of the human civilization where such arrangements haven’t been made, and there’s been no question, the stats, the children of a mother-and-dad family, mom-and-dad, female-male relationship, do better in life than single parent kids, all that. It’s all rolled into one.

Your analogy to interracial marriage, I don’t think it works. I don’t think it’s relevant because we’re not changing the definition of marriage in an interracial marriage in any way, shape, manner, or form. The skin color of the participants doesn’t do anything to the institution. It doesn’t change it, it doesn’t dilute it, it doesn’t water it down, it doesn’t make it meaningless. But the marriage of people of the same sex totally wipes out the meaning of the word and once again we are allowing institutions of millennia and tradition to be diluted and perhaps even eliminated in terms of their real true meaning in order to satisfy wants and desires of convenience in the moment.

If you looked at every institution, “Well, hey, you know, only 1% of the population has a million dollars, why not tax ’em at 75%? What’s the big deal? Raise their taxes, 75%.” You do that, and pretty soon everybody’s gonna be paying a 75% tax rate. It doesn’t stop. The fact it affects so few is not the way to look at it. Now we have people in the UK who want to marry their dogs. Now we have people who want to get married to two or three different people, and there are people that care about the institution that consider it valid, valuable, worthwhile, meaningful, relevant, and productive.

They’re worried about it being watered down and diluted to meaninglessness. And in the process, they’re worried about the whole notion of respect for it crumbling as well. Your attitude happens to be the majority opinion, though. That’s how it is coming to pass. “Hey, if two people love each other, what difference does it make? Who are you to say people who love each other shouldn’t be able to get married?” The old saw.

I could use one of your techniques back at you. Well, gay people are not prohibited from getting married. Anybody, man, woman, if they want to marry each other they can get married. Nobody is being denied the chance to get married. Now, you would guffaw at that, you would pooh-pooh that, but it’s the same analogy as your interracial marriage example. That would be my answer to you. These things, to a lot of people, do matter, because of the future implications contained.

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RUSH: Look, folks, it really isn’t complicated. Marriage, like every other word, has a definition. It is the union of a man and a woman, and — very, very importantly, in this instance — in most cases it happens or is supposed to happen under the eyes of God. (gasping) Uh-oh, religious component, uh-oh, religion is the enemy of the left. Uh-oh, anything we can do to blow up religion, we’ll do. Therefore, make marriage nothing more than an agreement. God’s got nothing to do with it. There isn’t anything really serious going on here, just two people that love each other, saying so, why not. Additionally, marriage was never established to discriminate against anybody.

But you wouldn’t believe that if you listen to the advocates who want to change what it means. Nobody ever thought about it discriminating against anybody. It’s just what it was. I mean, there are certain activities that are what they are, and no matter how much you try to change the definition, you can’t change what the activity of the institution, tradition is. It was never established to discriminate against people. It had much loftier goals. Marriage had a much, much loftier purpose than to discriminate. It was not even a factor.

And then there’s this. When you boil this all down, I don’t care what you do, and I don’t care how you arrange things, every single one of us has a mother and a father. I don’t care what you do, I don’t care what changes in definitions of words and whatever inroads you make in society, but there’s nothing you are ever gonna be able to do to change that. We all have a mother and a father. And if we start screwing around — well, we already have — with the definition of marriage and all this, then there are gonna be a lot of people who aren’t gonna know who both of their parents are. And that’s true I know of adopted kids. I know there are exceptions to everything.

But it’s undeniable. We all have a mother and father. No matter how else we try to tell ourselves that we’re gonna change, we’re becoming more enlightened, you can’t wipe that out. You can’t erase that fact, and that fact results from biology. There’s nothing you can do to wipe it out until somebody comes up with the artificial womb.

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RUSH: Here’s Mike in Raleigh, North Carolina. You’re next. I’m glad you waited, sir. Hello.

CALLER: Hi, Rush. I hope you, Kathryn, and your pets are well.

RUSH: Well, we are doing great, sir, thank you.

CALLER: Oh, that’s awesome. I have the answer to last week’s question, I do believe, on why 1% can make the political agenda.

RUSH: Yes. I’d be interested in your answer to this question. It was posed last Thursday.

CALLER: Thursday and Friday.

RUSH: Thursday and Friday.

CALLER: Right.

RUSH: The question was how can essentially one million people —

CALLER: Right.

RUSH: — come to dominate the American political system and culture on the issue, in this case, marriage. How can 1% of the population succeed in intimidating the vast majority into acquiescence. You have an answer.

CALLER: I have an answer. Just like the government has taken over energy, health care, mortgages, the banking, their next move is to take over religion. And, believe me, religion is a big business.

RUSH: Well, it can be. I’m not sure I follow you, though. Government wants to take over religion?

CALLER: Oh, absolutely. If they can make laws and be able to then tax or penalize, as they will, if religions don’t follow the laws they make, they have now taken over that aspect of our private life.

RUSH: Well, yeah. What I see more than that is actually the attempt to eradicate religion.

CALLER: Why would you eradicate something you can make money off of?

RUSH: Well, for political power. If you can eliminate a religion’s tax-exempt status with its churches, then you eliminate donations to the church, you eliminate the church. The church ceases to exist. And if they’re your political enemy at the church, how are you gonna make money off the church? Are you talking about taxing them and forcing them into all kinds of punitive financial arrangements in order to stay in business?

CALLER: Just like the coal industry and everything, sure. Put regulations on them. You have to accept gay marriage or you are no longer a religious organization.

RUSH: Oh, I see, that’s how you’re relating it to gay marriage.

CALLER: Yeah.

RUSH: You will the accept gay marriage and you will perform gay weddings or else. Well, that’s it, they’re gonna take away the tax-exempt status.

CALLER: Exactly. Exactly. That’s what I’m trying to say.

RUSH: Okay. So your answer, then, the reason the 1% can do it is that they have the Democrat Party-run government behind ’em?

CALLER: Absolutely.

RUSH: Okay.

CALLER: That’s exactly right. And the more they take over the private sector, the more powerful they become.

RUSH: Because that’s where the money is.

CALLER: Follow the money.

RUSH: Follow the money.

All right, well, Mike, I’m glad you made it through. I appreciate that. Your answer is close… Most people, when they answer this, they did it by e-mail. Most people answered, “Well, this 1%’s bigger than 1%, because when you look at where they’re concentrated, they’re in media. They’re in Hollywood. They’re in all of the opinion-making industries in the media, for one thing, and they have the power of the Democrat Party pushing their agenda.”

“So the fact that they’re just 1% of the population is actually irrelevant.” If had to come up with a consensus answer adding every aspect of e-mails that I got on this said, that would be it. You have added a new one, that what’s actually going on here is the state attempting to wrest control of religion in order basically to take money from them in order for their continued existence. “Pay up or go out of business.” Interesting.