Bill Maher and atheist author Sam Harris’ explosive argument with actor Ben Affleck over Islam last weekend has earned Maher praise from both the right and the left.
On Friday night’s “Real Time,” Maher argued that liberals are failing to stand up for liberal principles when they hesitate to criticize Islam.
Harris agreed, saying, “We have been sold this meme of Islamophobia, where criticism of the religion gets conflated with bigotry towards Muslims as people. It’s intellectually ridiculous.”
Affleck objected to this, and claimed that criticizing Islam is “gross and racist. It’s like saying, ‘Oh, you shifty Jew!’”
Harris, Maher, and Affleck then proceeded to yell over each other for several minutes, with Harris eventually calling Islam “the motherlode of bad ideas.”
“It’s the only religion that acts like the mafia that will f—ing kill you if you say the wrong thing,” Maher said.
In the Daily Beast, Michael Tomasky wrote, “This liberal is firmly on Maher’s side…A liberated woman or a gay man who lives in a country where being either of those things is at best unaccepted and at worst illegal doesn’t need multiculturalism.”
Bill O’Reilly advised Affleck that he “should well understand that he himself would be beheaded in a heartbeat by these ISIS animals.”
Fox News’ The Five also backed Maher.
Greg Gutfeld crowed that Affleck was “reduced to a sputtering bitter scold, soaked in self-righteousness.”
“In a shock to even himself, Maher becomes the sanest man in the room,” Gutfeld joked.
In an interview with Salon, Maher defended his position: “I mean, do the people arguing with us, would they really open a lesbian art gallery in Ramallah? [Laughs] Or Karachi? Or Cairo? I don’t know if they would back up what they’re saying with actions.”
“We are not bigoted people,” Maher maintained. “On the contrary, we’re trying to stand up for the principles of liberalism! And so, y’know, I think we’re just saying we need to identify illiberalism wherever we find it in the world, and not forgive it because it comes from [a group] people perceive as a minority.”
