Dan Savage Was Last Straw — Catholic Group Demands Bill Maher’s HBO Show Gets Canceled

Bill Maher is under fire after hosting LGBT activist, author, and comedian Dan Savage Friday night on his HBO show, “Real Time.” The Catholic League is a small but extremely wealthy and far-reaching self-appointed organization devoted to waging war on anyone who voices opposition to the Pope, the Vatican, or Catholicism itself — even if the opposition is critical of Roman Catholic pedophile priests.

On Monday, from his Park Avenue office in mid-town Manhattan, Catholic League president Bill Donohue issued a demand to HBO’s parent company, cable giant Time-Warner: “Cancel Bill Maher.”

“The board of directors at Time Warner cannot distance themselves from Bill Maher any longer,” Donohue bloviated. “On Friday night, Maher teed up Dan Savage, another anti-Catholic bigot. What happened was particularly vicious.”

“Maher commented on gay couples who adopt children, alleging that a Hawaiian bishop said these kids had a greater chance of committing suicide,” Donohue whined — not even addressing whether or not it was true. (Why is that, do you think?)

Here is how Savage responded: “That’s total bulls***. He’s confusing children of gay parents with children who are raped by Catholic priests. Sorry, I am just done being lectured about children and their safety by Catholic-f***ing bishops, priests, cardinals.” Shortly thereafter, Savage again remarked about “kiddie-f***ing Catholic priests.”

Donohue went on to note that the Catholic League (which is pretty much just Donohue and a tiny staff) is “sending to every member of Time Warner’s board of directors a copy of 54 anti-Catholic statements made by Bill Maher on TV [click here to read the report].”

You should actually read the list. Aside from being humorous, that the jokes can actually be made by Maher and Donohue is unable to refute those that aren’t just jokes, but real accusations, it’s extremely embarrassing for Donohue to advertise it at all.

Dan Savage’s response to Bill Maher’s comment about gay parents raising children was pretty epic, as we reported on it first thing Saturday morning:

After jokingly asking what gay sex is like, Maher brought up the marriage battle in Hawaii. He asked about Hawaii‘s Catholic Bishop Larry Silva’s false claim that children who grow up in gay homes “have a greater chance of committing suicide.”
“That’s total bullshit,” Savage responded. Bishop Silva is “confusing children who were raised by gay parents with children who were raped by Catholic priests.” He went on to complain about “being lectured about children and their safety by Catholic f*cking bishops, priests, cardinals.”

Of course, Time Warner will get inundated with emails from dutiful Catholics. And the response from the rest of America — including many lay Catholics who disagree with the Catholic Church’s abominable response to their pedophile priests problem and position on same-sex marriage and adoption — will merely be free advertising for HBO, Time Warner, and Bill Maher.

Bill Maher Compares ‘Smart, Sexy War Hero’ JFK To Reagan

On the 50th anniversary of the assassination of John F. Kennedy, Bill Maher Friday night paid tribute to the nation’s 35th President in “New Rules” by comparing him to Ronald Reagan. It was an endearing tribute that, as is the “Real Time” host’s way, mocked the conservative Republican.

“We have Kennedy, you have Reagan. We have marijuana, you have Metamucil. We want gays in the military, you want them in the airport restroom,” Maher quipped.

Asking, “can we on this day at least agree that Kennedy was cooler?,” Maher noted, “our liberal icon was a smart sexy war hero who said he wanted to go to the Moon. Yours was an old fuddy-duddy who tried to rock denim.”

“Our guy was Don Draper. Yours was Rooster Cogburn. And don’t tell me Reagan had Hollywood glamour. He wasn’t a star, and in 1980 he was 30 years past his prime, which was never much.”

Maher then went on a long trip down the memory lane of Reagan’s time in office, focusing on just how ugly fashion then was.

“But one reason we looked uglier in the ’80s is cuz we were uglier. It was when the Baby Boomers, the generation that was supposed to be different, just gave up and sold out completely. Kennedy’s time was the time of, ‘Ask not what your country can do for you.’ Reagan’s was the time of, ‘Greed is good.’

“JFK was far from perfect, but he was a true wit and a sex machine, and he knew how to wear a pair of shades. Reagan was an amiable square in a cowboy hat who had sex with a woman he called ‘Mommy.’

“Kennedy was James Bond. Reagan was Matlock. Love him or hate him, we win. Republicans can call Reagan ‘their Kennedy’ all they want, but it’s like calling Miller High Life ‘the champagne of beers.’ It’s why calling some ‘your Kennedy’ will never really cut it, because our Kennedy… is Kennedy.”

Watch, enjoy, and may JFK rest in peace.

Dan Savage Jokes With Bill Maher, ‘I’m Going To Keep Inseminating My Husband’ To Make A Baby

Dan Savage never fails to deliver — and always delivers on-point commentary that serves to hit his critics and opponents where it hurts them the most. Last night, on HBO’s “Real Time with Bill Maher,” Savage sat across the table from radical right-wing Republican anti-tax, anti-choice activist Grover Norquist and former GOP Congressman Connie Mack of Florida, and told Maher, “I’m always telling people who say two men can’t make a baby, ‘Anything is possible for God.’ I’m going to keep inseminating my husband and keep my fingers crossed.”

The commentary was funny, but its effect on Tea Party darling Grover Norquist — the often behind-the-scenes activist whose support of George W. Bush went a long way in sending him to and keeping him in the White House — was priceless. This was Norquist’s expression at the moment Savage made his comment, and a split-second later, smiling uncomfortably — or in disgust, perhaps?

But the real point Savage was on hand to make was that the Supreme Court’s rendering unconstitutional DOMA — the Defense of Marriage Act of 1996 that banned the federal government from recognizing same-sex marriages — means he can stop living in fear that his death (as he said, possibly at the hands of those who hate him, or,) in, say, a plane crash, would leave his husband and partner of fifteen years, Terry, and their son without his social security survivor benefits, and the estate tax would render his family financially devastated.

The partial end of DOMA means the federal government now has to recognize his marriage as legal and valid. By the way, listen for Norquist’s curious decision to decide to talk about school choice in reference to the Trayvon Martin case. Strange. Enjoy this excellent segment from Maher’s show — the rest of which was not his best, with the exception of MSNBC’s Rula Jebreal, who was exceptional.