Professor, frequent media guest, atheist, and former CNN+ host Scott Galloway traveled over to HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher on Friday to prove he knows nothing about religious people as he declared that new Speaker Mike Johnson’s belief God ordained him as Speaker proves he is “David Duke-lite.” Fellow atheist Maher did not go that far, but did play the Mussolini card.
Galloway huffed, “Democracy, the pillars of that are one: the peaceful transfer of power and this guy was an architect of trying to arrest that in a society that is secular and when a guy gets this nod and says that God ordained it, I’m like ‘Well, boss, whose God is that?’”
Many people believe that God has a plan for their life and that everything that happens in the world is part of that plan. It is a basic belief that you would hear preached at any church in the world, but Galloway finds it tremendously scary, “Because this is-- the whole point here is that we separate church and state, that we believe in the peaceful transfer of power and the reason this guy is Speaker is none of us have the time to read his resume and realize he's David Duke-lite.”
Maher, proving he is also still very much a liberal atheist, replied, “I don't know if he's David Duke-lite, I read today he has an adopted black son, I don't think David Duke would do that, but he is a religious nut.”
Digging into Johnson’s resumé, Maher continued, “He was a lawyer for Alliance Defending Freedom, this is from their literature. They seek to ‘recover the robust Christendomic’-- I don't know that word, your professor, maybe you do? ‘Christendomic theology of the third, fourth, and fifth centuries.’"
Maher also certainly got that quote from the Southern Poverty Law Center’s website, which absurdly labels the ADF a hate group. However, Maher left off the definition he claims to seek, “This is catholic, universal orthodoxy and it is desperately crucial for cultural renewal. Christians must strive to build glorious cultural cathedrals, rather than shanty tin sheds.”
The ADF defends religious liberty, the integrity of woman's sports, and similar beliefs, but by leaving out the rest of the quote, Maher made it seem like the ADF and Johnson want to abolish freedom of religion all together, “I mean, he uses the phrase ‘the so-called separation of church and state.’ This-- see this is the Alliance of -- this is-- I hate, you know, fascism the word is thrown around, but it's always the far-right church folks meet with the corporate power folks, that's Mussolini, that's all these fascist states.”
“Corporate power,” in America in 2023 can be described a lot of ways, but politically united with “far-right church folks” is not one of them.
Here is a transcript for the October 27 show:
HBO Real Time with Bill Maher
10/27/2023
10:26 PM ET
SCOTT GALLOWAY: Democracy, the pillars of that are one: the peaceful transfer of power and this guy was an architect of trying to arrest that in a society that is secular and when a guy gets this nod and says that God ordained it, I’m like “Well, boss, whose God is that?”
Because this is-- the whole point here is that we separate church and state, that we believe in the peaceful transfer of power and the reason this guy is Speaker is none of us have the time to read his resume and realize he's David Duke-lite.
BILL MAHER: Well, we did now. I don't know if he's David Duke-lite, I read today he has an adopted black son, I don't think David Duke would do that, but he is a religious nut. He was a lawyer for Alliance Defending Freedom, this is from their literature. They seek to "recover the robust Christendomic"-- I don't know that word, your professor, maybe you do? "Christendomic theology of the third, fourth, and fifth centuries."
You know, maybe the fifth—
JESSICA TARLOV: Something a little more recent.
MAHER: -- but the third and fourth? I mean, he uses the phrase "the so-called separation of church and state.” This-- see this is the Alliance of -- this is-- I hate, you know, fascism the word is thrown around, but it's always the far-right church folks meet with the corporate power folks, that's Mussolini, that's all these fascist states and this-- now that-- and of course Trump doesn't give a shit either way about religion, he will say whoever likes him—
TARLOV: Right.
MAHER: -- he will, sure, -- I'm down with – so, he's of course going to, just, cave on all this religious nonsense from the fifth century we are going back to now?
