Long ago in a land skirted by two oceans, there lived a people who worshipped lizards.
In their speech those people oftentimes invoked the "Sacred Lizard," and since it was punishable by death to harm, let alone kill and eat, a lizard, they used that expression a lot. Eventually it got very hairy there, in a religious sense. The scales of justice tipped so radically that citizens were afraid to be seen near a lizard for fear of being denounced by their fellow citizens as being "anti-reptilian."
"President Chemania is a Sacred Lizard," people would say. "No one can say so much as a bad word about him anymore." And it was true: It was just as serious a crime to criticize the president as it was a lizard.