On August 10th, Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher featured a program I had to watch. I don't normally watch the show, since I feel it's pretty stupid.
I mean, think about it. You have Bill, plus four guests of varying professions, talking about certain issues. The show might be better if it devoted all its time to one issue, but it doesn't. And since one guest is almost always a comedian of some sort, nothing is taken very seriously. But then, that's really the point of the show, I guess: not taking things too seriously.
Doubtless the show has had some good episodes, but the August 10th episode wasn't one of them.
So why did I want to watch it? Because one of the guests was Ellen Johnson, who is the current president of American Atheists, Inc. And one of the topics was near and dear to my heart: the discrimination of the atheist.
Bill's other guests that night were: Tony Rodham (brother to Hillary Rodham Clinton), George Wallace (the obligatory comedian), and John Schneider (country singer and actor, best known as Bo Duke from The Dukes of Hazzard).
The topic of atheism was covered for all of five minutes. And what a lame five minute period it was.
There were three issues that were touched upon in a sort of haphazard fashion: discrimination against atheists, evolution, and discrimination in the Boy Scouts of America. Let me sum up for you the views of the host and his guests (aside from Ellen's, since I'm sure you know where she stands on them).
Bill Maher was actually pretty cool, as usual. He pointed out that atheists seem to be "one of the last groups of Americans that it's okay to persecute." He did, however, defend discrimination in the BSA. (They're a private entity and can do what they wish.) But then, the fact that the BSA is partially funded by our tax dollars was never brought up, and that probably would have changed his views.
Tony Rodham just doesn't see that atheists are discriminated against.
George Wallace simply made jokes about everything.
But John Schneider was the real embarrassment. John not only failed to see how atheists are discriminated against, but really went off on the topic of evolution. He said that it seemed only right that if creationism can't be taught in public schools, then neither should evolution be allowed. After all, it's only "a theory." Maher came to the defense, saying that physics also is made up of "theory." And when Schneider said (in an offended fashion) that evolution was being presented to children as fact, Maher again spoke up by saying it is fact.
But before Maher (or Ellen… or anyone) could explain the difference to John between "theory" in science and "theory" in common usage, Schneider asked the others if they knew "the rest" of the title of Darwin's Origin of Species. The rest of the title, said Schneider, was "the Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life." True enough, but he left out "by Means of Natural Selection." Then he really made my jaw drop. He said, "I believe as, many people do, that that doctrine, that theory, is a racially based theory trying to prove that there are people more highly evolved than other people --" And here it became all muddled, but no one had the opportunity to point out to this guy that "races" is synonymous with "species" in that context.
John showed gross ignorance, made worse by the fact that he was the strongest presence on the stage. His ignorance of evolution made him seem like he should be from Kansas, not New York.
Well, to me, he was ignorant. But to the millions of typical viewers of this show, the only thing they saw was good ol' Bo Duke giving that blonde atheist hussy what-for.
Ellen could hardly get a word in edgewise, and certainly didn't have the time to fully explain matters to her co-panelists.
And here I thought "discrimination of the atheist" was a topic they would discuss, not an activity in which they'd participate.
Imagine my surprise when the August 20th show also featured religion as one of the topics.
Bill's guests this night were Beverly Mitchell, an actress on a TV show called Seventh Heaven; Nicholas Lassonde, a student from California; Micah White, founder of the Young Freethinkers' Alliance; and Tiffany Rolland, a student from Texas.
The topic of religion came up with regard to Nicholas, primarily. Nicholas was evidently "censored" in his proposed graduation speech. You can see the speech here. And this young chap is planning to sue his school for discrimination, or some such thing.
Naturally, this drew ridicule from Micah White, who correctly pointed out that proselytizing is simply inappropriate in that setting. Tiffany, a very savvy young lady, agreed with him.
It was at this point that Nicholas, bearing that scary, vacant, glazed look that I've seen in too many people, showed his utter ignorance of the law. He trotted out the old arguments, like the argument that the First Amendment doesn't say anything about separation of church and state, and that freedom of religion isn't the same as freedom from religion. Blah blah blah. For an honor student, he sure doesn't know what he's talking about.
Micah White was very well-spoken, and right on the money, though he didn't quite manage to squeeze in exactly how Nicholas was wrong about these issues.
It strikes me that I haven't said anything about Beverly Mitchell, yet. Um… okay. How about this: She's an airhead.
And she sided with Nicholas, too.
Bill Maher, for his part, seemed to agree with Micah and Tiffany, to no surprise of mine. And he did have one really good quote: "If only the adults were this good on my show."
No kidding. These under-20s took everything quite seriously, making the "adults" on the previous week's show look rather… childish.
