Excerpt of transcript from The O'Reilly Factor, January 13, 2006:
O'REILLY: "Factor Investigation" segment tonight: The Christmas season is barely over, and already the ACLU and George Soros have opened a new front in their war to get Christianity and spirituality and Judaism out of the public square. Now they want to control what you can say when somebody sneezes.[That's all, folks]
With us now, William Donohue, head of the Catholic League for Civil Rights. Pleasure to have you here, Bill.
DONOHUE: Thank you, Bill.
O'REILLY: Now, I understand the latest attack of the secular agenda, they actually have Wal-Mart, one of the largest retailers in the country, telling its employees not to say 'bless you' when a customer sneezes.
DONOHUE: That's right, Bill. Wal-Mart has a policy now that if somebody sneezes, you have to say 'gesundheit', you're not allowed to say 'bless you'. And I think it shows just how extreme anti-Christian bigotry has become in this country that they would do this.
O'REILLY: And I think we should talk about the source--
DONOHUE: Absolutely.
O'REILLY: Because this is an O'Reilly factor exclusive, we are breaking a story here that nobody in the mainstream media has the guts to touch. So tell our viewers about how you discovered this.
DONOHUE: Well, I got it in an e-mail. And I got the same e-mail from several different sources, so that's independent confirmation.
O'REILLY: Sounds rock solid to me.
DONOHUE: I think so.
O'REILLY: Now in the interest of fairness, not that the ACLU would ever care about being fair. But we have a standard here. This is the no spin zone. And in fairness to Wal-Mart, I should point out that they are denying they have this policy.
DONOHUE: Of course they deny it.
O'REILLY: Of course. Because they know it makes them look terrible. They're not going to admit it.
DONOHUE: Absolutely. But, I've got the e-mail that says they do.
O'REILLY: You've got them dead to rights.
DONOHUE: And what they're doing here, let's be clear about this. They're not only violating the rights of Wal-Mart employees, their right to religious expression.
O'REILLY: Uh-huh.
DONOHUE: Because of course it's a deeply held belief in the Catholic church that your soul leaves your body briefly when you sneeze, and that's why we say 'bless you'. But they're not only violating their employees' rights, they're violating the rights of their customers.
O'REILLY: Because when you say 'gesundheit' to someone, you're mocking their beliefs.
DONOHUE: Yes, Bill, but it goes beyond that. You're saying they have no right to those beliefs. When you say 'gesundheit' to someone you're violating their right to religious expression, because you're saying they have no right to say 'bless you'.
O'REILLY: Good point. But I think there's another angle to this that it's important to bring up. Which is that, we're at war here. This is a war, I know it's not politically correct to say this, but this is a war between the Christians and the Islamofascists.
DONOHUE: Absolutely.
O'REILLY: And when you declare war on the Christians, that means you're on the side of the terrorists. And the ACLU, it's no coincidence, they're trying to get terrorists set free and they're trying to suppress religious expression, and it's all part of the same thing.
DONOHUE: Right.
O'REILLY: They're on the side of the terrorists, and everything they do makes sense once you understand that.
And speaking of on the side of the terrorists, I have another O'Reilly Factor exclusive here, and I got this in an e-mail. And this e-mail, this was forwarded several times before it got to me, and you know, a lot of people were copied on it, so people have had a chance to check it out. And as far as I know, nobody has been able to disprove it. So this is a very reliable source we're talking about.
And this reliable source tells me that the city of Berkeley, California, the Berkeley City Council, has voted to make it illegal to say 'bless you' when somebody sneezes.
DONOHUE: That is appalling.
O'REILLY: Well, I can't say I'm surprised. This is Berkeley we're talking about. But it is, they have clearly gone too far this time.
DONOHUE: Of course.
O'REILLY: And you know, if I'm Jesus, I walk right into Sproul Plaza, I set up my little pulpit, and I say, "Listen, citizens of Berkeley, if you don't want Our divine protection, fine. You want to be your own atheist hippy commune? You want to be on the side of the terrorists and the ACLU? Go right ahead."
And if Al Zarqawi comes in here and blows you up, We're not going to do anything about it. We're going to say, look, every other place in America, Our chosen country, is off limits to you, except Berkeley. You want to blow up Telegraph Avenue? Go ahead.
DONOHUE: I think that's what Jesus would do.
O'REILLY: You want to plant a high-powered explosive device in a crowd and kill hundreds of hippy communists, you want to spray the street with limbs and bone fragments and viscera and brain matter and internal organs, I say go ahead.
DONOHUE: Amen.
O'REILLY: Because, I mean, these people, these 'gesundheit' people are sriking at the heart of what makes America great. And I know it's not politically correct to say this, but this is the No Spin Zone, so I'll go ahead, this is a Christian nation.
DONOHUE: The founding fathers were deeply religious people.
O'REILLY: That's absolutely right. And this, this 'gesundheit' instead of 'bless you', what does that even mean? It's German for 'health' or something. Can you imagine that? Can you imagine going around yelling 'Health!' at people who sneeze? It's idiotic. It's all part of the dumbing-down of sneezing. I mean, what kind of person would say that?
DONOHUE: Well, I'm sorry to say I know exactly what kind of person. Now, I don't want to go into the sordid details, but it's no coincidence that 'gesundheit' comes to us from German.
O'REILLY: I see where you're heading with this. Go on.
DONOHUE: Well, remember that the first thing the Nazis did when they came to power was pass a law making it illegal to say 'bless you'.
O'REILLY: Like the Nazis in Berkeley.
DONOHUE: Exactly. The very first thing they did was outlaw religious expression, just as the secular Jews are trying to do today.
O'REILLY: And yet, most people, I wish they taught this in history classes because I would bet you most people don't even know that.
DONOHUE: They don't. But when you do, it all comes together. You see the big picture.
O'REILLY: Which is?
DONOHUE: That secular Jews are once again trying to exterminate the Christian race.
O'REILY: Exactly.
DONOHUE: Just like they tried to do in the 1930s in Germany.
O'REILLY: That's right. And I think we have the right to resist by any means necessary.
DONOHUE: Absolutely.
O'REILLY: Including the use of physical violence against someone who says 'gesundheit' to you?
DONOHUE: Well now, as a professional Catholic, I'm very reluctant to endorse the use of violence.
O'REILLY: Uh-huh.
DONOHUE: But, yes.
O'REILLY: It's self-defense.
DONOHUE: Absolutely.
O'REILLY: Bill, I want to thank you for coming on The O'Reilly Factor, I think this segment has opened up a lot of eyes out there.
DONOHUE: I hope so.
O'REILLY: And you can be confident that Fox is going to follow this story wherever it takes us. We're not dropping the ball on this one.
Thanks, and good night.
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