Bill Maher Makes Excuses For Michael Jackson, But Attacks The Catholic Church [Language Warning]

Maher "apologized" and then bashed the Church some more:

Craig Ferguson interviews Bill Maher May 3, 2005

Bill Maher said the following on The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson:

CBS

Late Late Show

May 3, 2005

34:00

Bill Maher: "I think that there is no perspective. People have no perspective, especially about crime. You know, zero tolerance. You know, of course, nobody ever wants to see a child, you know, diddled. That’s just plain wrong. But even the people who are testifying against him, they’re saying that he serviced them. They didn’t service him."

Craig Ferguson: "You don’t have kids, do you, Bill?"

Maher: "No."

Ferguson: "No. I have a son. It makes me crazy, this thing, this Michael Jackson thing. It drives me, the idea of someone touching my kid, I would go, I nearly swore there. I’d go crazy."

Maher: "Very wrong. But, you know, I remember when I was a kid. I was savagely beaten once by bullies in the schoolyard. Savagely beaten. If I had a choice between being savagely beaten and being gently masturbated by a pop star. It’s just me."

Ferguson: "The always controversial Bill Maher, everybody."

Maher: "What? That’s it?"

Ferguson: "Bill Maher. We’ll be right back with Rain Pryor."

As far as the sex abuse scandal, my thoughts are after the jump...

A quantitative analysis of the nature and extent of sexual abuse by Catholic priests in the United States from 1950 to 2002, prepared by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, was conducted through three questionnaires mailed to dioceses and religious orders throughout the United States. John Jay College reported that 97 percent of the 195 dioceses, and religious orders, representing 80 percent of the religious order priests in the U.S., participated in the survey. The study determined that approximately 4 percent of all priests were accused of abuse between 1950 and 2002. Part of that study may be viewed here: Characteristics Of Children Who Alleged Sexual Abuse By Catholic Priests

The study revealed that 80.9 % of sex crimes committed against young people by Catholic priests during the past 52 years involved homosexual men preying on boys. Only 5.8% of victims were under age 7; 16% percent were between ages 8-10; and over 78% were between the ages of 11-17. 44% of the accused priests were accused by more than one person, and contrary to the suggestions implied by the media, the victims have not been preadolescent children; they were generally teenage boys. It is reasonable to conclude from this data that the majority of sexual abuse within the Church has involved homosexual men who have a sexual appetite for teenaged boys.

See the figure below from the Associated Press (The Post-Crescent, Feb. 28, 2004, p. A-4):

According to the report, 81.9 % of sex crimes committed against young people by Catholic priests during the past 52 years involved homosexual men preying on boys. Only 5.8% of victims were under age 7; 16% percent were between ages 8-10; and over 78% were between the ages of 11-17. That's not pedophilia. That is homosexual ephebophilia.

Pedophilia involves sexual attraction or contact with preadolescents, which is to say, children who have not yet developed secondary sex characteristics.

Any sexual contact with a member of the same sex is homosexual in nature (no matter what the ages of those involved). All the priests were men. 80.9 % of the victims were boys. The vast majority of the boys were teenagers.

Most of these priests were not pedophiles (check the DSM IV if you don't believe me: Pedophilia)

Ephebophilia vs. pedophilia

If you don't believe that many homosexuals are attracted to minors, check out the: Male Homosexual Attraction to Minors Information Center

Here are more eye-opening articles:

Here is what homosexuals admit about themselves with respect to sex with minors: 'The Gay Report'

Another reason to be concerned with the widespread acceptance of homosexuality within our culture and in the Church is this ugly secret: Pedophilia is more common among 'gays'.

Here is another article supporting the same premise: Homosexuality and Child Sexual Abuse

Support for homosexuality, by logical conclusion, leads to the acceptance of pedophilia and other illegal acts still currently viewed as deviant and immoral by the majority of people. In fact, the movement to normalize pedophilia has already begun: The Problem of Pedophilia

Here is evidence of more efforts at normalization: Gay-Affirming Psychologists Propose Redefining Child Sexual Abuse

The sex abuse crisis in the Church (for the most part) involved predatory homosexual male priests and religious who violated Church teaching and acted out on the impulses presented by their aberrant drives and appetites. Their actions are an embarrassment to the Church, but they are absolutely not condoned by the Church. Covering up these actions was also very wrong, but again, these actions were sinful acts on the part of members of the Church (even if they were in leadership roles). It's wrong to smear the Pope and/pr all Catholics for the sins of the worst Catholics, especially when the Church condemns such sins and always has.

It's also wrong to continuously deny the fact that homosexuality played a major role in the scandals and probably the cover-ups, as well.

Food for thought: A Few Blunt Words To Catholics

Comments

[ASimpleSinner]

What no wants to talk about is that these men were going after teenage boys... It is the same behavior that occurs in the context of chatrooms and gay.com (a public traded company; ticker symbol LGBT) where male minors would have no difficulty seeking contact and then being contacted...

That is in no way an effort to say what some did wasn't deplorable... Just to point out that the double standard is obvious to anyone who wants to see it: practicing and promoting homosexuals regularly and routinely seek out younger sex partners and are not villified for it... and had these homosexuals not been priests, men who by the very nature of their collar stand in contradistinction to the wisdom of the world, it would be accepted that they were doing a favor for "young confused homosexuals seeking support and comfort!" That is right, when homosexual priests prey on boys they get called "pedophiles" when plain old "out, loud, and proud" homosexuals prey on boys, they are "providing a necessary service" and all is overlooked!

I can't be told the outrage is about the acts alleged or comitted - homosexual adults preying on adolescents is frequent enough... and understood in some circles as a right of passage for young men who - feeling alienated from their peers - turn to older "out" men.

(All of the Sexual left loves Kinsey - In 1970 the Kinsey Institute interviewed 565 white gays in San Francisco: 25% of them admitted to having had sex with boys aged 16 or younger while they themselves were at least 21! cf: http://www.familyresearchinst.org/FRI_EduPamphlet2.html)

That is just as insidious in my book... but the "morally enlightened" are willing to throw those teens under the bus (they were "already gay", and "needed gay companionship"!) and pass it off as something that is acceptable enough because the adolescents in question "were gay" and (I dunno, because sex is a right?) needed those relationships... In cases where practicing and promoting older men "provide first experiences" for younger men they are are seen as doing a service, not taking advantage...

Start to look at the studies for when men who are same-sex attracted first have sexual encounters and how common it is for them to be with men older than themselves. See if a pattern is discernable... and then wonder, "what confusions may have been exploited by these preadators to confirm these adolescents in a certain identity?"

When 2-3% (I actually think that is rather generous of an estimate!) of priests who are homosexual exploit young men in this fashion it gets called pedophilia and all priests are now suspect, and all the Church is considered worthy of denigration... When older homosexuals routinely prey on younger men it is accepted as a rite of passage.

I have noticed a special ire from the self-identified gay community against the Catholic Church with a righteous indignation that is somewhat odd... The question springs to mind "where do they have room to criticize?"

Being that we have already crossed the line in speaking about things that are taboo (ie. homosexuals and teenagers) I am going to be so bold as to go one step further (we are already in dark waters!) and say that at the heart of social outrage is a response to the truth of the fact that the natural law is written on the heart of men and many who are otherwise supportive of the self-identified gay community are especially angry about its incursion into the priesthood because they know in their hearts that this sort of sexual expression is wrong, and they know in their hearts that the Catholic Church is real and true and it is incongruent - to say the least - to see homogenital behaviors present there. In a most bizarre way, even lapsed or non-Catholics find it abhorrent to see this behavior - otherwise acceptable in the "gay community" - in the Catholic Church.

Why is that?

[jay_d_acre]

Good God, there is something seriously wrong with Bill Maher! Sincerely, Bill, if you happen to be reading this, please see a psychiatrist immediately. You claim your hate speech against the Pope and the Catholic Church is just a joke, but we all know it's not. You are doing verbal violence to Benedict XVI and to all Catholic priests and Catholic faithful everywhere because you have an irrational fear that America is becoming a theocracy. Your words may be just the right fuel that some unstable anti-Catholics out there need to add to the fires of their similar hatred, pushing them to commit acts of physical violence against innocent people just because they are Catholic or where a Roman collar or happen to be walking out of a Catholic Church when they drive by with their sawed-off shotguns at the ready.

You're actually like neo-Nazis who have an irrational fear that America is being run by Jews, that there is such a thing as a Jewish tribal instinct towards the aggressive destruction of Gentile host populations' cultures, hereditary and religious identities, and the constant fomenting of conflicts within as well as between those societies, even the orchestration of wars that sacrifice Gentile men and women to serve the interests of the Jews and their racial-state of Israel. People who preach such warped and perverse sermons have a right to, but they rightly exist on the fringes of society, and their words have been the fuel that individuals have used to crank themselves up and go out and shoot up synagogues and Jewish social centers. And if they made such claims on their HBO program, they would swiftly be shown the door. You are just like them, except for some reason you get to keep your show and keep spewing the hate.

Seriously, get some help, Mr. Maher.

[Rob G]

"Covering up these actions was also very wrong, but again, these actions were sinful acts on the part of members of the Church (even if they were in leadership roles). It's wrong to smear the Pope and/pr all Catholics for the sins of the worst Catholics, especially when the Church condemns such sins and always has."

But the Pope was personally responsible for covering up these crimes. And the number of crimes, or the percentage of boys vs teenagers is ethically insignificant—If the Pope covered up just one of these crimes, it's wrong. Period.

That's pretty bad for someone who is supposed to be "infallible"