HBO’s Bill Maher made an appearance on “Jimmy Kimmel Live” to speak about the terrorist killings of 12 in Paris and said — in characteristically blunt style — that all the world’s religions were “stupid,” begging for insult.
“We have to stop saying when something like this that happened in Paris … we have to stop saying, well, we should not insult a great religion,” Mr. Maher said, Raw Story reported. “First of all, there are no great religions. They’re all stupid and dangerous — and we should insult them, and we should be able to insult whatever we want. That is what free speech is like.”
Mr. Maher also said liberals, especially, needed to wake up to the dangers of radicalized Islamists.
“I’m asking [liberals] to turn toward the truth as I have been for quite a while,” he said, Raw Story reported. “I’m the liberal in this debate. I’m for free speech. To be a liberal, you have to stand up for liberal principles. It’s not my fault that the part of the world that is most against liberal principles is the Muslim part of the world.”
He then qualified that remark a bit and said he was aware that most Muslims wouldn’t have participated in the type of terror attack waged against Charlie Hebdo.
“But here’s the important point,” Mr. Maher said, Raw Story reported. “Hundreds of millions of them support an attack like this, they applaud an attack like this. What they say is, we don’t approve of violence but you know what, when you make fun of the prophet, all bets are off.”
And he asked U.S. liberals to wake up to the dangers of the radical element.
“They chop heads off in the square in Mecca,” he said. “Well, Mecca is their Vatican City. If they were chopping the heads off of Catholic gay people, wouldn’t there be a bigger outcry among liberals? I’d ask you.”
• Cheryl K. Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com.
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