I've had some friends of mine who know I study religion and it's political impact on the populace. I was humbled that these three people would ask me for my opinion. To the point they were wondering what I thought of Bill Maher's smackdown of Islam.
Here is a transcript of his remarks and in bold and red are my thoughts.
President Obama keeps insisting that's ISIS is not Islamic. Well, maybe they don't practice the Muslim faith the same way he does. But if vast numbers of Muslims across the world believe, and they do, that humans deserve to die for merely holding a different idea or drawing a cartoon or writing a book or eloping with the wrong person, not only does the Muslim world have something in common with ISIS, it has too much in common with ISIS.
I think making blanket statements like that are harsh and often wrong but then I think that the majority of Christians believe that homosexuality is an abomination and in Manifest Destiny being part of God's plan for the Earth until Jesus comes back.
There's so much talk -- you can applaud -- there's so much talk about wiping out ISIS. You can't, not with bombs. You can only expose that something is a bad idea like extended warranties. Cultures are different. It's okay to judge that rule of law isn't just different than theocracy, it's better. If you don't see that, you're either a religious fanatic or a masochist, but one thing you certainly are not is a liberal.
To count yourself as a liberal, you have to stand up for liberal principles. Free speech, separation of church and state, freedom to practice any religion or no religion without the threat of violence. Respect for minorities including homosexuals, equality for women. It amazes me how here in America we go nuts over the tiniest violations of these values while gross atrocities are ignored across the world.
Bill points out something very important here. Liberals are chock full of shit. They can shit all over Christianity, they even encourage it, but say something about Islam and BAM you are "intolerant" and 'bigoted'. That to me is the height of hypocrisy. I've been blasted to all hell for some of my more 'conservative' views and of course told about "that's not the Indian way" bullshit. Both the Bible and the Quran are very violent books. The bloodshed and loss of life IN the books and BECAUSE of the books astounds me when I think of the sheer misery that has been inflicted upon people because of those books.
Jonah Hill yells "suck my dick faggot" at the paparazzi and an entire nation goes into Twitter outrage until he is forced to perform that most debasing of acts -- the talk show apology tour. Meanwhile, in 10 countries actually sucking a dick can get you stoned, and not a good way.
HELL YES! I was talking to a friend about an Idle No More rally we were going to hold and how to get more people involved in our cause, my reply was to "gay it up" and then we would really get attention! Truth is White liberals have homosexual rights as the cause of the month. If you say anything remotely that might offend a homosexual or the homosexual community then you are ostracized immediately. I know that being 'two spirit' and a gay person are NOT the same thing but try to tell a liberal that and you will be on the business end of a major hissy fit.
We hear a lot about the Republican war on women. It's not cool. Rush Limbaugh called somebody a slut. Okay. But Saudi women can't vote or drive or hold a job or leave the house without a man. Overwhelming majorities in every Muslim country say a wife is always obliged to obey her husband. That all seems like a bigger issue than an evangelical Christian bakery refusing to make gay wedding cakes.
Can't argue with facts. It's just a liberal trait to attack any form of belief in God let alone choosing to follow some of the more ignorant laws of both books. We never hear about Saudi Arabia and the fact that this year alone Saudi Arabia has beheaded 79 people. That's pretty backward. Any theocracy is a backwards and oppressive place to live. Maybe because I was raised by a Latina/Indian woman I can't imagine treating a woman as 'less than'. If anything I think that women are the superior and should be sought out for advice. The Bible and the Quran are both chock full of insane ideas on how women are to be treated. We are of course talking about books from the bronze age and trying to follow them in this day and age is stupid just plain stupid.
Ninety-one percent of Egyptian women have had their clitorises removed; 98% of Somalian women have. Ayaan Hirsi Ali grew up in Somalia and was one of them. She was scheduled to speak at Yale last week but the school's atheist organization, my people, complained that she "did no represent a totality of the ex-Muslim experience." Meaning what? That women like mutilation? You're atheists. You should be attacking religion, not siding with people who hold women down and violate them which apparently you will defend in the name of multiculturalism and then lose your shit when someone refers to Chaz Bono by the wrong pronoun.
To be fair here I have to say that the Christian nations in Africa also have the practice of female mutilation and yet there is very little outcry from liberals. Maybe they need to 'gay up' their issue.
Donald Sterling isn't allowed to own a team because he told his mistress not to post pictures with black guys. Okay. But if we're giving no quarter to intolerance, shouldn't we be starting the mutilators and the honor killers or will that divert us from the real problem that when Mel Gibson drinks he calls women sugar tits? That's our show. (HBO's Real Time, September 26, 2014)
