In the opening monologue for Friday's episode of "Real Time with Bill Maher," new House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., was the topic of focus, although the host was quick to mention it's likely that no one had ever heard the man's name before, prior to him winning his short campaign to succeed ousted former speaker, Kevin McCarthy.
Leaning in on Johnson's holy hell fire views on gay sex and abortion, Maher referred to him as "super-duper-uper" Christian, saying that Republicans finally found someone who "fits the glass slipper" . . . . "Never heard of him."
Scratching around underneath his belt like maybe he had a rash that night, or perhaps it's just that the thought of Johnson was making his skin crawl, Maher said that Republicans really found their sweet-spot in electing this new speaker — both Christ-y and the worst of the election deniers — in that he loves Jesus and hates Democracy.
"I gotta say, this guy owns it," Maher said. "We're just getting to know him and he said just today, or maybe yesterday, 'Pick up a Bible off the shelf and read it, that's my world view' . . . That's what he's saying, 'Talk to the hand, the one with the nail in it.'"
Known for being in a covenant marriage with his wife — a legally distinct kind of marriage in three states (Arizona, Arkansas, and Louisiana) in which the marrying spouses agree to obtain pre-marital counseling and accept more limited grounds for later seeking divorce — he is staunchly against gay couples having equal rights in their own marriages, or even just in the privacy of their bedrooms.
"He absolutely hates gay sex, especially when he's having it," Maher joked. "He wants to actually criminalize gay sex. He's written in favor of reinstituting sodomy laws; that's laws against anal and oral. I've never understood this about the Republicans. If you're so against abortion, why would you be so against the two places to do it where you can't get pregnant?"
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