Late-night talk show host Bill Maher on Friday criticized liberals for defending Muslim refugees without acknowledging they embrace values that are at odds with American societal values.
Citing a poll showing 53 percent of Americans believed Syrian refugees have values that are at odd with American values, Mr. Maher said, “that may not be wrong.”
“If you are in this religion, you probably do have values that are at odds,” he said, Mediaite reported. “This is what liberals don’t want to recognize.”
He argued that many refugees may come from place that have Sharia law or want to invoke Sharia law and pointed to cases in the U.K. where Muslim immigrants have carried out brutal traditions such as female genital mutilation and honor killings, forsaking Western values.
“This idea that somehow we do share values that all religions are alike is bull——,” Mr. Maher said, Mediaite reported.
Canadian author and politician Chrystia Freeland strongly disagreed with Mr. Maher, arguing that the Paris attacks should be a rallying call for the West to stand up for diversity in the face of the Islamic State terrorist group’s attempts to create fear.
“We are not going to say that Muslims are worse than Jews or are worse than Christians or atheists,” Ms. Freeland said.
“Not as people, the ideas are worse,” Mr. Maher shot back.
“No and their culture is not worse, and we also appreciate that ISIL does not represent Muslims,” Ms. Freeland said, using an acronym for the Islamic State. “And it’s now more important than ever to say that and to stand up for diversity.”
Sen. Angus King, Maine independent, said that he agreed that the U.S. needs to stand up for American values and not tolerate behavior that is not normally accepted in Western culture, but said the Islamic State wants “to get us to clamp down on all Muslims regardless of who they are where they are and push them into the ISIS camp.”
Ms. Freeland argued that you can’t change extreme Islamic perspective by broadly saying Muslim ideas are bad, to which Mr. Maher retorted that he was trying to stand up for moderate Muslims by having a debate about Islam’s extremist ideologies.
“Killing women for being raped, I would say is a bad idea,” Mr. Maher said, Mediaite reported.
• Kellan Howell can be reached at khowell@washingtontimes.com.
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