Bill Maher's Sad Anniversary

This being March 23, 2009 AD we are marking the second anniversary of Bill Maher's, hopefully, all time low.

Bill Maher is well known for his political views, which will not be discussed here. He is also known for his condemnation of Christianity and the Bible, which will also not be discussed here. What I do wish to discuss is Episode #506 of "Real Time With Bill Maher" which aired on March 23, 2007 AD.

When the show originally aired I gave it two hearings in order to ensure that I was really hearing what I thought I was hearing. Furthermore, I read the transcript in order to be triply certain and in order to treat the topic fairly and accurately. Below I provide the transcript of the portion of the show that I wish to address here.
I copied the transcript directly from Bill Maher's website (trans. found here). The transcript even includes "[laughter]" and "[applause]" notations which are interesting as they assist us in gauging audience reaction.
An audience who are typically of such quality that they even managed to get on Christopher Hitchens' nerves.
The "[expletive removed]" notations are my own.

I could think of many emotionally charge terms to describe what I am referring to as Bill Maher's, hopefully, all time low. I say "hopefully" since I sincerely hope that he will not sink any lower, despite his infamous ability for doing so. Yet, the best course of action is to present the transcript, let Bill Maher speak for himself, let you come to your own conclusion and then make my comments.

To set the stage: he is making a male chauvinistic remark that pictures the American troops in Iraq as being male and states that "There's 150,000 horny GI's in a country with no…" here he refers to women by a one word vulgar term that reduces them to a particular part of their anatomy, this is followed by "[laughter]."

MAHER: …I was reading in the news this week, this story about Christians in this country, Baptist people, who are sponsoring something called "purity balls."
Now, when I hear about religion - religious people holding balls, I usually think of Catholics. [laughter] [applause] But - but this is the creepiest thing I've ever heard.
And I've heard some creepy things from the Christian right.

A "purity ball" is like a prom for a dad and his daughter, where dad gets in a tuxedo and the daughter gets in a gown, and they go to this ball, and he puts a ring on her finger and feeds her wedding cake, and she pledges to stay a virgin until she gets married.
And then dad has sex with her in the car. [laughter] [applause] No, no, it doesn't - it's not that bad.

[Mayor Shirley] FRANKLIN: It's not that bad.

MAHER: But, what century are we living in-

[John] LEGEND: That's just weird. That's just completely weird. [laughter]

FRANKLIN: It's all over, though.

MAHER: It's - it's in 48 states they are doing this.

LEGEND: Why-

FRANKLIN: It's all over.

MAHER: And - and, I mean, what era are we living in where the man passes the daughter from dad to the husband? You know, that's what they used to - that's what the Taliban does.

LEGEND: Where dad plays husband to the daughter at the prom.

MAHER: Well, you know, they - we went online for their website-[laughter] [he produces a pile of t-shirts] I'm not kidding, these are t-shirts that are available on these "purity ball" websites.
Look at this. This is not a joke. [he reads the slogan on each shirt] "Abstinence Avenue - Exit When Married."
[laughter] Look at this one: "Notice: No Trespassing on This Property - My Father is Watching." [laughter mixed with "ewws"] Look, here's one on panties!
Now, if you're close enough to read this.[laughter] I'm guessing the game is up. [laughter] So, we found some others.[laughter] I'm not going to lie; these are the bull[expletive removed] ones we made up that are even funnier. [laughter] "World's Greatest [expletive removed] tease!" [laughter] [applause]

LEGEND: Oh, no.

MAHER: "I'm With Horny!" [laughter] Oh, I love this one. [laughter] "What Happens in Vegas, Happens to Someone Else." [laughter] "My Father Went to Third Base and All I Got was this Lousy T-Shirt." [laughter] [applause] And my favorite.[laughter] [he holds up t-shirt which reads, "My (picture of 'pussy'cat) Belongs to Daddy." [laughter] [groans] [applause]

MAHER: All right. So, anyone want to weigh in on this before I talk about the U.S.-

LEGEND: Well, it's nice that, you know, that dads, you know, want to keep their daughters pure. That's nice. But this is just weird. [laughter] And, and, and why don't you want your sons to be virgins, too?

MAHER: If you're slipping a ring on your daughter's finger and eating wedding cake, trust me, you're plotting to [expletive removed] the babysitter. [laughter]

David Frum finally breaks in with a voice of reason:

[DAVID] FRUM: But, here's something that does need to be said. There is a lot of social science research - and the mayor will know it well - that shows that the relationship that - the close relationship between fathers and children, sons and daughters, has an enormously powerful impact on how those kids turn out in life.
In fact, you can cut - if the father is present - you cut the kids' rate of succumbing to all kinds of problems, from dropping out of school and getting into trouble with the law, from getting pregnant when she's a teenager, by - by two-thirds. And it is a dramatic thing.
So this - this sounds kind of gross. But there is - but, there is a good thought here that people need to hear, which is, fathers - fathers really matter.

LEGEND: I think fathers need to be realistic with their kids, too. [applause] And I think part of the problem with this same movement of people is they won't teach about safe sex; they won't prevent pregnancy that way, by teaching about safe sex.
And I think it's the same kind of movement that is unrealistic about sex and teenagers that creates more problems than it fixes sometimes.

FRANKLIN: And responsibility of young men.

LEGEND: Absolutely. Absolutely.

Apparently unable to stand a mere few seconds of adult conversation, Bill Maher once again opens up the sewers of his mind:

MAHER: And the statistics show that the kids who do this kind of stuff and take abstinence pledges wind up having a lot more sex than the other kids do.
It's in the mouth and in the nasty place-[laughter]-but, you know, they keep the-

FRANKLIN: Well, that's the evidence, yeah. That is - that is the evidence.

MAHER: That's the evidence. Right.

LEGEND: It doesn't work. It's not-

MAHER: That's right. Look - I mean, look, I'm not the one to talk. A lot of women in the United States have called me "Daddy," but.[laughter].
I'm not really their "Daddy" is all I'm saying. [laughter]

I understand that the show is a platform for Bill Maher to express himself. I also understand that he is Pavlov and that the audience is there to behave as his trained canines. As you can see above, they laugh and applaud at the drop of a hat, which is the very point of having a live studio audience.
Yet, is anyone actually listening to what he is saying? Was anyone in the audience able to wipe the stars off of their eyes and notice what it was that they thought was so hilarious? I certainly do not know. What I do know is that Bill Maher reached a new low on that day, as did his audience.

Sure, he celebrated when Jerry Falwell passed away (as did Christopher Hitchens). But making fun of, laughing at, and applauding children that are raped by their own parents is a level of malicious perversion that I simply cannot fathom. I actually do not comprehend how any reasonably moral, rational and sane person could reach such depths of darkness. How could anyone derive joy from one of the most predatorily malicious acts which only the most twisted pervert could conceive?

That one would be twisted enough by prejudice to even conceive such thoughts is one thing.
That someone would dare to repeat such perversion to anyone else is quite another.
That his producers would agree to air it is another thing still.
And that his audience would reward him with encouragement and approval is simply beyond my comprehension.

As it was pointed out to Bill Maher, there is a direct correspondence between adult women who are moral and mentally and emotionally healthy and girls who had healthy, close and strong relationships with their fathers. To what lengths some fathers are forced to go today may be "weird" but it is clearly a sign of desperation when living in what Laura Ingraham has well termed the "pornification of America." The new scarlet letter is "A" for "abstinence." Large segments of our population believe that the best thing for children is that all that the world contains should be shoved down their throats as early as humanly possible. Yet, as a parent my job is not only to protect my children but to protect my children's childhood. There will be plenty of time for them to be chewed up and spit out by the world.

It is interesting that they note that the statistics show that "It doesn't work." It is interesting and quite sad. Interesting because it is at this particular place and time that "It doesn't work." Imagine a young girl with parents who are concerned for her emotional and physical wellbeing-particularly regarding sexual purity, or let us say: sexual control. On the one hand she has her parent's advice but on the other she has hordes of people from young to old that believe that she should be corrupted, used, abused, misused, chewed up and spit out as early in life as humanly possible.

Incidentally,

"…a study showing that abstinence-pledged virgin teens were more likely to engage in oral and anal sex in an attempt to create the impression that those teens were more likely to contract an STD…while the study showed that 4.6 percent of the abstinence-pledged teens contracted an STD, this was 35 percent less than the 7 percent of non-pledged teens who also acquired one."1

Bill Maher's sentiments are often spurred on by the "They're gonna do it anyway" crowd. Perhaps this crowd could make a list of the things which our kids are going to do anyway so that we can introduce our kids to whatever it is and provide a safe atmosphere right here at home: condoms, sterile needles, pornography, rolling papers, ecstasy, guns, explosives; whatever they want.
Her parents tell her to have fun and be safe and she sets off into a world saturated with people functioning within pop-culture, Hollywood, the internet, magazines, television, etc., etc., etc. all clamoring for her attention and all urging her to "Just do it."

What? She got pregnant at 13 years of age? No problem: murder the baby, or raise it without a stable family, have the grandparents raise it, see the child between school and work, shuffle the child between feuding parents, so what?
What? She contracted a sexually transmitted disease? No problem: curse God and die.

Have you ever tried telling someone that you will not allow your child to watch this or that? Take a lozenge because the very same people who one second are telling you that if you do not like it just turn it off will be jumping down your throat accusing you of brainwashing-child abuse.
"You can't protect your children forever" they say. No, but can I please have a few years at least before you place the weight of the ills, worries and filth of the world right on their little tiny fragile shoulders? What we have today is precisely what we have when we let the "It doesn't work," "They're gonna do it anyway" and "You can't protect your children forever" crowd rule the day.

No, I do not believe in keeping kids locked in the house with a naivety about life "out there." But the fact is that when the majority of people believe in letting children be children, that once they grow up they can get married and engage in copulation, that only then can they have children, and then stay married until death do them part- guess what? It did work. It worked for generation, it worked for millennia and it can work again. The point being that when this view is the norm the lifestyle that follow logically from it were the norm.

The bottom line is that if Christian principles were followed we would not have the amount of sexuality related problems we have today: adultery, abortion, abandonment of children, children being forced to live out of a suitcase, shuffled between un-cohabitating parents, sexually transmitted diseases, single parents, teen pregnancy, to name a few.
A teenager with an STD would be an oddity. As it stands today, an abstinent teenager is an oddity and something to be mocked. I certainly understand that not everyone will follow Christian (or good old fashioned common sense) principles related to sexuality. Of course, neither will everyone follow the do what thou wilt principles that have brought us where we are today.
Thus, real and logical question is: towards what shall we strive? Because it is that towards which we strive that will determine our general direction.

Ultimately, the issue that we took on here is Bill Maher's subjective worldview-which has brought him to the most troublesome point of laughing at children that are raped by their own fathers-is what it says about Bill Maher (and his producers, audience, supporters, defenders, etc.).
Note that, quite often, when someone expresses such opinions they are not really expressing their opinions on the subject at hand but expressing what is deep within the recesses of their hearts, souls and minds, "out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks" (Matthew 12:34). Unless Bill Maher is prepared to offer the name of even one single father who took his daughter to such an event and raped her we have to assume that their motivation is pure. It is Bill Maher who filters a beautiful, innocent and pure act through the sewer of his heart and mind and demonstrates what is to be found therein.
He is quite obviously a very, very troubled person and is in desperate need of love and prayer. Think back, or read back, through what he said and you will find just how twisted his thoughts are. He sees a father's love for his little girl and imagines him raping her. What about the t-shirts that were "even funnier"? He not only had to conceive of such twisted perversion but share it with others to the point of having someone actually manufacture the t-shirts.

Please pardon my tone, I do not mean to simply shoot off emotionally charged statements as much as this is a very emotional issue for me. The fact is that parents have tremendous influence over their children. Particularly, fathers have tremendous influence over their daughters. They should not be ashamed of this, embarrassed by this, nor dissuaded from being the most loving, caring and faithful male role models in their daughter's lives. It is out of sheer desperation that father's feel forced to go to such lengths as purity balls.

Another interesting correlation between fathers and children was studied and reported on by Prof. Paul C. Vitz. He surveyed the home lives of the world's most influential secularists/atheists. Playing off of Sigmund Freud's speculation about belief in God being derived from a desire to have a father figure Prof. Paul Vitz demonstrates that many of these people rejected God due to having poor relationships with their fathers, or due to their father's absence, or due to their rebellion against their fathers. They rejected God (the father figure) because they rejected their own fathers. Prof. Paul Vitz wrote a book on this subject entitled, "Faith of the Fatherless: The Psychology of Atheism." A lecture on the subject is available online. But this is probably just opening up another can of worms…

1. 1. Vox Day, The Irrational Atheist (Dallas, TX: BenBella Books, Inc., 2008), p. 127 citing Martin, Samuel, 'A Two-Letter Word for Little Miss Pure: It Begins with N.' The Times, 26 June, 2007