Bill Maher is a comedian and talk show host known for his outspoken and liberal views about a number of different topics ranging the political and economic spectrum. While he usually toes the line without insulting anyone except for the truly conservative and republican, he has inflammatory views that were eventually going to offend other groups of people. It seems as though the people he has most recently offended are other liberals and it seems as though forgiveness is going to be difficult to get; Maher recently had Ben Affleck on his show and it dissolved into a yelling match about militant Islam and extremism with Affleck calling Maher a racist for lumping all Muslims together. While this might not be too different than Maher’s usual rhetoric, the fact that he insulted everyone in the world’s second largest religion while engaging in a yelling match with a popular actor means that Maher is facing some heavy criticism, even from his own side.

It turns out that Bill Maher angered so many people that there are now protests against his speaking engagements. Maher was recently chosen to give the commencement speech at the University of California, Berkeley and is now facing student protests and a petition with over 2,000 student signatures against his speaking. While he doesn’t get called out for his comments on Muslims specifically, some of the organizers of the protests and petition are from the Muslim student body and most definitely felt hurt by his callous comments.  All of the protest and petition documents make sure to say that there is no issue with freedom of speech and Maher’s ability to engage in it. What they take issue with is his using of freedom of speech to spread and promote hate speech and intolerance; regardless of whether someone is an extremist or a moderate. Hopefully this is a wake-up call for him and he changes his ways, he’s doing no one any good by acting like he does.

If you’d like to read more, the link is here.