I still don’t understand how Bill Maher can spew out such hatred and bigotry against people, based on their religious views, and still get presented on national television.

Bill Maher is a major d-bag. Everyone knows this. I’m more disturbed by Heilemann’s eagerness for Bill to know that he agrees with him.

The rapper got kicked off the flight b/c he swung at Romney. Rather simple.

felix – You could just as easily be talking about Glenn Beck (everyone, yes, I mean everyone knows he’s a major d-bag.). By the way, in terms of political punditry, what is the difference between Maher and say, Coulter or the Rodeo Clown?

So Ted, you’re saying that when Beck and Coulter do these things, you think it’s okay?

The level of animocity directed by the Christian right in this country against the secular world is dramatically more strident than what the secular world throws back. The secular world is much more “live and let live”, while the Christian right (at least some of its leaders) are literally seeking to abolish the notion of separation of church and state, as they catigate gays, those who drink or smoke, those who engage in consentual sex, those who smoke weed, and otherwise those who do not believe.

Liberals can never stick to the subject. Never.

Seculars are ‘live and let live’? When did that happen? Anyone who dares breathe a word of dissent is dissected under a microscope, with everything from their family life to their appearance made a mockery of. Some of the left’s posts about Sarah Palin come to mind.

Drew seems a little too sensitive to cover humor.

Ted, you think there is no difference between Maher and Beck? Well, Maher just announced the other day that he wished Glenn Beck had been murdered. Can you please point out to me when Beck has said something like that?

And if you can’t come up with an example, have the honesty to admit that your position is bogus.

I’m waiting…..

The Bill Maher show is like a circle jerk.

What is said on this program has no relevance except to the ones in Maher’s inner circle and many of them even try to distance themselves from Mahers imbecilic rants.

felix – I am sorry, but if you are unaware of the daily moronic rants of Glenn Beck, then I can’t help you. More to the point, what makes nuts like Coulter and Beck political pundits, while Maher is not considered a pundit? That’s the question, stay on topic please.

If Maher did say that about Beck then I would recommend he use his get out of jail free card and plead satire. That should be enough for you as well shouldn’t it?

Well writer, if may surprise you to know that the ACLU, together with Americans United for Separation of Church and State have routinely supported religious groups on a variety of issues through friends of the courts briefs. Take for example the prosecution of Reverend Moon in 1981, the year he founded the Washington Times. At that time, led by Bob Dole from the Senate, the U.S. attorney in New York, Rudy Gulianni, prosecuted Reverend Moon for what eventually turned out to be a failure to pay approximately $7,000 in taxes that were due over a three year period. Of course Reverend Moon was one of the most hated men in the world back then. Hated by who? The Christian ministers and the right, in general. The ACLU and AU, both bastions of liberalism, fought like crazy, on the record, on Reverend Moon’s behalf. He ended up going to jail for 18 months anyway. But liberals do believe in the first amendment and the rights of religious people to practice their religion. I call that live and let live. On the other hand, not withstanding that the Constitution permits it (according to the U.S. Supreme Court), people on the religious side would deprive woman of the right to choose an abortion, demand prayer in public schools, and, as was the case with Stupak, Ensign and Sanford, pay off politicians to garner illegal influence in Washington.

Beck was not using satire when he went after the Christian churches, nor when he went after Springstein. Maybe you have not figured it out yet, but the man is channeling McCarthy these days.

Yup, Beck is indeed the new Joe McCarthy. By the way, Mormon scholars and leaders of his own church have basically said that Glenn is full of it…something most of us already knew.

Beck’s favorite author, Mormon and John Bircher, Skousen, who Beck raves about, and where Beck gets his communist under every rock thing, was also condemned by the Mormon church.

This post is not about Glenn Beck. There are posts on Mediaite about Glenn Beck daily so you have no excuse to be talking about Glenn Beck in the comment section of a post that has absolutely nothing to do w/ him.

The president was mentored by the Rev. Wright for over 20 years. Are we going to see Maher make such connections with Pres. Obama’s actions and the teachings of his tutor?

Well Christine, you know how these discussions go. I think that Beck angle is relevent because he has been going after “socially just” Christians of late. My mother is a Beck fan, and she was none too happy when he essentially condemned her Methodist church by saying that those churches that endorse social justice are Communists and/or Nazis. She definitely got off the Beck train after that. At least Maher is a comedian.

Ted is using the ‘two wrongs make a right’ argument. Beck and Coulter are ‘bad’, so Maher gets a pass.

Cecelia, I wouldn’t go near that Rev. Wright argument with Ted watching. Pointing out Wright’s racism will get you accused of being obsessed with race.

It is wrong to say that because one person, a minister who should know better, is a racist, then all members of his congregation are racists. That kind of guilt by association stuff is improper.

Cecelia, your obsession with race is very unhealthy for you, personally, and it makes for boring posts. The topic is Glen(n) Beck and his villification of ministers of the Gospel. Please stick to it.

Okay, so it was (White) Royal instead. Same thing.

writer – How can a human being be so consistently wrong. Read the column, then come back and write a relevant post…please, I assume you chose “writer” for a reason.

Yes, he did Ted. Both “Prevaricator” and “Whiner” were already in use.

Wrong about what, Ted? You seem to detest Beck and Coulter for their rants, and Maher does the same thing, only from the left instead of the right. Fair minded individual that you are, it follows that you’d also be outraged at Maher, too. Right?

And Ted, knowing how sensitive you are, I specifically told Cecelia NOT to bring up Rev. Wright. Your zeal to attack anyone disagreeing with you is causing you to miss things.

valkyrie101: “Hated by who? The Christian ministers and the right, in general”

This is a lie.

In 1977-78 Rev Moon was investigated by the Fraser Committee, chaired by Donald Fraser, a Democrat from Minnesota. The committee investigated possible KCIA influence on the Unification Church’s campaign in support of Richard Nixon. This was obviously a politically motivated attack by the Left.

During the tax case in 1981 many religious groups supported Rev. Moon. Among the American Christian leaders who spoke out in defense of Moon were conservative Jerry Falwell, head of the Moral Majority, and liberal Joseph Lowery, head of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

“Whiner”. (White) Royal made a funny.

Look, Maher is a comedian. He does stand up. Whatever he says, people take that with a grain of salt. But Coulter and “Elmer Gantry”, I mean Beck, purport to be a serious (read: not comedic) political commentators. There is a big difference. Maher is the like the court jester in the King’s court. He can say outrageous stuff because he is a fool. No one takes him seriously. But Beck and Coulter hold them selves out, and are presented by FOX as serious commentators.

I don’t believe there’s a disclaimer at the beginning of each show saying “You must take this seriously.” As O’Reilly is always saying, he puts it out there and you decide if you accept it or not. If you don’t, you don’t. And especially with Coulter, is she trying to hide the way she feels? Do you come away thinking “I wonder which side of the fence she’s on?” Same with Maher. Everyone knows he’s far left. But saying hateful and insulting things and using the “Hey, I’m a comedian” defense is a bit lame. Hateful is hateful.

Ted, I am still waiting for you to show me when Glenn Beck, like Bill Maher, said he wanted to see someone murdered. Instead all you do is justify Maher’s hate speech, and then dish out more attacks on Beck. So much for your credibility.

Yes, hateful is hateful. Maher should be ashamed of himself if he has said hateful things. And no one should dance on another person’s grave. That’s a clear message from all of this. Are you willing to hold that standard to everyone? If so, do you condemn Rush, or anyone else, left or right, for his or her hateful rhetoric? If you say yes I will be impressed.

Sorry Azark, with regard to Reverend Moon, perhaps you have not read Carlton Sherwood’s book on the subject. The Fraser committee stuff went no where. Was that the left that precipitated that? Perhaps, but not only the left. But I was talking about his prosecution, which had nothing to do with the Fraser investigation. Sherwood referenced a letter sent to the IRS by Dole as the institgation of the prosecution. The religious people hated Reverend Moon because he was condemning the traditional Christian churches, left and right. He was being accused of breaking up familys, brainwashing, etc. And the Christian ministers hated him over his success in recruiting young energetic motivated followers. Sure, the hard left (not liberals) hated him too for his anti-communist efforts, but it was Dole that got the prosecution started, and Guiliani who was the U.S. Attorney moving it along. Sherwood reported that there was a public opinion pole taken at the time of his trial to determine whether Reverend Moon could get a fair trial. That pole showed Reverend Moon to be only very slightly more popular than Adolph Hitler. He was hated on the left and the right. His prosecution proceeded during the Reagan administration, however. Was that an unrighteous prosecution? Absolutely.

The Christians only started hooking up with Reverend Moon after he started the Washington Times, and after his conviction when they began to realize that the conviction of Reverend Moon for holding church funds in trust, something that many church ministers did, was a nasty precedent against their own situation. During the appeal of his conviction, several church organizations signed on to friends of the court (amicus) briefs in Reverend Moon’s support, as did the ACLU, AU and several other liberal organizations. But all along, even before the conviction, and unlike the Christian churches, the ACLU was there.

This is what the case involved: Reverend Moon held a bank account in his name which was used for church purposes. Apparently that was a common thing done by small churches throughout America. Some of the money was used for he and his family’s support. His accountants, a large accounting firm, dutifully paid taxes on all the money that was used by Reverend Moon personally. At trial, the government admitted that most of the money, 95%, was used for church purposes. But the government argued that because the account was in his name then taxes should have been paid on not just the funds used for Reverend Moon’s personal support, but also the interest that accrued to the account. Moon’s accountants had failed to pay taxes on the interest. Moon, who spoke no English and had no idea at all what his accountants were deciding, was completely ignorant of the whole matter. Yet, the government, mostly during the Reagan years, insisted on prosecuting him for that.

Actually, TRFRK, if you look upward you’ll find that this is the topic:

“Bill Maher Slams Mitt Romney, Links Mormons To Racism”

You’re in the wrong thread, Einstein.

valkyrie101, you are engaged in a long historical tradition here.

Christians will always vex the world. They will always be described as intrusive, demanding, and never happy. There will always be a large contingency who considers them the proper fodder for the lions’ den.

There are a handful of people — Bill Maher is one, Michael Moore another — who, if I saw lying injured in the street in front of my house, I’d go after a lawn chair.

No Baustian, we have already agreed. No dancing on anyone’s grave.

Cecelia,
Most people in this country profess a simple faith, do not go to church much, and read the Bible rarely, while nevertheless believing in a creator, Jesus, and doing good for their fellow man. No one condemns them. But there is an activist Christian element that seeks to intrude in the rest of the people’s lives by seeking to force them to follow their more strict Christian ways. The secular world does indeed resent them for that.

Valkyrie, until the last fifty years there were blue laws, sodomy laws, laws against abortion, and homosexuality, portraying these people as the radicals desiring change is an inaccurate picture.

I’m not arguing that any of these things are good, just that many good people believed that they were within the context of respect for Biblical tenets.

They have as much right to this as do progressive to agitate within a democratic system against second hand smoke in any public space, mandated recycling, and to tax me more heavily to pay for programs stemming from their own morality.

You’d do well to get some perspective about such things.

I would totally agree that there is a secular element that likewise seeks to inflict its morality on the rest of us, but I am not so sure that the examples you site are in that category. Without progressives pushing the issue of, for example, pollution standards, LA would still be under a smog canopy (that in the 60s was actually visible from space), Lake Erie would be a lifeless, and the Hudson River a sewer. On the other hand, there is a limit to that stuff and definitely some liberals are way to insensitive to the economic hardship inflicted by extreme pollution standards. Most smokers agree, including this smoker, that smoking in public places is not fair to non-smokers, though I agree that some people are taking that agenda too far. As for the taxes, I would assume you agree that some taxes are necessary (if for no other reason than to pay for our military, roads, etc.), so you must be objecting to the tax rate. Are our taxes too high? Personally I would like to see the tax rate on the top two percent of income earners, those earning millions, to be higher, because that 2% of the population currently owns like 90% of the total private wealth. I think Obama is looking for a progressively higher rate for those earning over 200K per year. That seems fair to me. Most Americans would not be affected by that.

PETA? They are way over the top.

“As for the taxes, I would assume you agree that some taxes are necessary (if for no other reason than to pay for our military, roads, etc.), so you must be objecting to the tax rate.”

No, I saying something a bit broader than I don’t like taxes and that conservatives think pollution is cool.

Ted says:
March 13, 2010 at 1:25 pm
Yup, Beck is indeed the new Joe McCarthy. By the way, Mormon scholars and leaders of his own church have basically said that Glenn is full of it…something most of us already knew.

Ted,
Can you provide even ONE example of a church leader saying he’s full of it? I’m in church every week and I haven’t heard anything of the sort. Just because you say something, doesn’t make it true.

The voices in his head said it.

On behalf of Ted, and the rest of us speaking about Glenn Beck’s alienating ways, here is a link that discusses the matter: http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/11/christians-urged-to-boycott-glenn-beck/ (exerpt to follow)

“Kent P. Jackson, associate dean of religion at Brigham Young University, said in an interview: “My own experience as a believing Latter-day Saint over the course of 60 years is that I have seen social justice in practice in every L.D.S. congregation I’ve been in. People endeavor with all of our frailties and shortcomings to love one another and to lift up other people. So if that’s Beck’s definition of social justice, he and I are definitely not on the same team.”

……………………………….

Philip Barlow, the Arrington Professor of Mormon History and Culture at Utah State University, said: “One way to read the Book of Mormon is that it’s a vast tract on social justice. It’s ubiquitous in the Book of Mormon to have the prophetic figures, much like in the Hebrew Bible, calling out those who are insensitive to injustices.
“A lot of Latter-day Saints would think that Beck was asking them to leave their own church.”

Mr. Barlow said that Mr. Beck’s comments were particularly ill-timed because just this year, the church’s highest authority, the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, issued a new “Handbook of Instructions” to church leaders in which they revised the church’s “three-fold mission” and added a fourth mission statement: care for the poor.
……………….

Well, the proper response to Mr Kent and Mr.Barlow (both engaged in some PR work, it seems) is to say– No, that’s not what Beck meant.

Beck is talking about liberation theology, not church charity work.

Cecelia,
Yes, of course, that would be an excellent fall back position. However, that is not what Beck said. Read his actual words and some Christian responses to them here: http://mediamatters.org/research/201003120055

JMO. I don’t think Beck was saying that churches should stop helping the poor, or abandon all social programs. What he was saying is that people should be cautious of a political agenda behind social programs.

autobahn,
That sounds reasonable. But here is the thing. For over a hundred years the Mormons faced stiff persecution from traditional Christianity. In some quarters, if you google it, they still do. In the last twenty years the Mormons have gotten quite a bit of respect from their Christian brothers, and Mormons and traditional Christians have found much common ground, to wit: the family values agenda. I guanantee you that the Mormon fathers, therefore, will not be too happy if some guy, a very high profile guy, and a recent Mormon convert, upsets the apple cart. So if Beck continues going off the page, the Mormons will speak out against him, as some have done. In the end, the Mormons will throw Beck under the bus if he begins to damage their reputation with Christians.

Valkyrie101, that’s not a fall back position, liberation theology with its ties to Marxism is exactly what the man is alluding. I see nothing on the MM site that suggests otherwise.

Are you arguing that Beck is against things such as community food pantries and free after-school church activities for latch-key kids?

“Social justice”, far from being a code word for Communism and Nazism, has been embraced by Christians for two thousand years. Beck suggested that if you see that code word associated with your church, you should run away. Now as a matter of fact, social justice is embraced, explicitly, in the teachings of numerous protestant and Catholic denominations, and is especially associated with minority churches. So you can understand why some people are pushing back against what Beck said. Given the outrage that has made its way through the media on this, you can expect Beck to very carefully walk it back. But this guy can not control himself, so you will probably see him stick his foot in his mouth on this or some other issue soon thereafter.

So are you still arguing that Beck didn’t mean liberation theology or are you not?

He explicitly did not.

So what type of thing did Beck “explicitly” say he was against.

He meant what by “social justice” as related to churches?

Cecelia,
Well, I am happy that you are defending Glenn on this. That is the American way. Correct me if I am wrong, but you are saying that by “social justice” he mean’t “liberation theology”. Well, let me say that you could be right. However, that begs the question, why did Glenn not say liberation theology? That is a known term. But by using the expression “social justice”, he implicated civil rights, aide to the poor, and notions of fairness and equality. You know, equality, like “all men are created equal”. All men must be treated equally under the law. All men are equal under the Lord.

But he did not just speak out against social equality, he equated those who believe in that to be Communists and Nazis (while holding up a Nazi and USSR flags).

Since notions of social equality are dear to many Christians, he therefore (and it must have been intentional) offended tens of millions of Christians. And he urged people to leave their churches. Most churches do not like that.

Of course we know Glenn does not like the notion of taxing the rich to pay for social programs (like health care). However, it is the ultimate ad hominen in a discussion of the issues to equate something like that to Naxis and Communists.

Perhaps Glenn will explain what he mean’t. I wish him well. Really I do. He speaks for millions, and everyone deserves to have a spokesperson.

valkyrie101,

There wouldn’t be four people in ten who knew what Beck meant if he had said “liberation theology”. But when he said that “social justice” was a code for Marxism, everyone but the most willfully and intentionally obtuse knew that he did not mean the sort of everyday good works seen from churches and evangelical movements.

No I wouldn’t agree with that. And obviously, given the reaction of the Mormon representatives, and the several Christian leaders that have weighed in on the matter, neither do they. Even if Beck did mean, as you suggest, liberation theology, comparing Christian churches that use social justice lingo to Communists and Nazis, is ridiculous, and is an intentionally hurtful ad hominen.

As I said before, Beck will walk back what he said, because by this time his FOX colleagues, his Mormon friends, and probably lots of other people have admonished him over what he said. Just because he is a conservative “commentator” as opposed to a newsman, does not give him license to hurl, essentially, hateful epitaphs against people that oppose his views.

I think if you’ll look up “liberation theology”, you’ll find the Marxist comparison made long before Beck was old enough to vote…

I’m sorry. When you go around calling regular Christian churches and ministers, communists and nazis because they choose to emphasize social justice, like Thomas Jefferson, most of the forefathers of our country, and countless sacrificial saints and heros of our Christian faith, you deserve the condemnation when it inevitably comes. But I will be glad to let you have the last word on this…. I had fun debating with you, Cecelia. See you again on another thread. :-)

I’ll have a word. Bill Maher is a sneering, arrogant little jerk who insults people under the guise of comedy. For someone who’s always pointing out the intolerance of others, he’s one of the most intolerant people on earth.

I think Moyers is very smart and funny, but then I think you are too, Writer (not that you’re as partisan as Moyers).