Bill Maher has defended Kirk Cameron's,
Rush Limbaugh's and Tracy Morgan's right to offend others.
In an op-ed titled Please Stop
Apologizing published Wednesday in The
New York Times, Maher, the host of HBO's Real Time with
Bill Maher, wrote that public figures have the right to offend
others.
“When did we get it in our heads that
we have the right to never hear anything we don't like?” Maher
said. “In the last year, we've been shocked and appalled by the
unbelievable insensitivity of Nike shoes, the Fighting Sioux, Hank
Williams Jr., Cee Lo Green, Ashton Kutcher, Tracy Morgan, Don Imus,
Kirk Cameron, Gilbert Gottfried, the Super Bowl halftime show and the
ESPN guys who used the wrong cliché for Jeremy Lin after everyone
else used all the others. Who can keep us?”
While Morgan, a
co-star on the NBC sitcom 30 Rock, apologized
after he drew the ire of the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against
Defamation (GLAAD) for jokes he delivered during a standup routine in
Nashville in which he condoned anti-gay bullying and said he would
stab his son to death if he found out he was gay, Cameron has instead
dug in his heels, saying that his
anti-gay comments were taken out of context.
Maher said that while he finds radio
host Rush Limbaugh “obnoxious” he coexists comfortably with him
because “the only time I hear him is when I'm at a stoplight next
to a pickup truck.”
“I don't want to live in a country
where no one ever says anything that offends anyone,” he concluded.
“That's why we have Canada. That's not for us.”