Bill Maher Thinks Sunlight is The Best Disinfectant, So We’re Adding Some

Bill Maher is trying to pretend he brought down Milo Yiannopoulos, when in fact he and Yiannopoulos actually share the same views on pedophilia.

We haven’t talked about Milo Yiannopoulos here at Culturess this week, as we are loath to give any ink to someone who is so foul, and who caused such horrific havoc to our sisters-in-arms like Jezebel, The Mary Sue and other feminist websites who suffered through the height of GamerGate. Let it be known though that quietly we are cheering his demise.

But we could not let it pass today when Bill Maher, who was part and parcel of the “Promote Milo In the Name Of Free Speech” nonsense that when on up until the video of Yiannopoulos promoting pederasty surfaced over the weekend. Maher, who did it for the eyeballs (and was handsomely rewarded in the ratings for it) is now trying to claim that he somehow is responsible for bringing Milo down.

Speaking to The New York Times, Maher claimed that it was he who made this happen:

"“As I say, sunlight is the best disinfectant. You’re welcome.I’m somebody who, many times, people have tried to make go away…. To see him as this monster is a little crazy. You know what he is?He’s the little impish, bratty kid brother. And the liberals are his older teenager sisters who are having a sleepover and he puts a spider in their sleeping bag so he can watch them scream.”"

Well, that sounds all well and good. (Except for the fact that the “bratty little brother” comparison is not only all wrong, but creepy.) But for those of us who actually watched Bill Maher back in the day, we know that in fact Maher is far more sympathetic to Milo’s endorsements of underage sex than he’d like anyone to remember. Observe:

This, for the record, is not the only time Maher made this argument either. I recall quite clearly, during the early years of Real Time on HBO, during Bush’s first term, seeing an episode where he made the same argument, and much more forcefully, that teenagers were “sexual beings” and therefore should be considered “fair game.” So much so that his entire panel shut down and did not speak until he was done ranting, and then every last one of them rushed to change the subject, and refused to engage his repeated attempts to get them to agree with his point of view–or at least acknowledge that he had some sort of very twisted point. (The video, unfortunately seems to be lost to the ages.)

Next: Roxane Gay Puts Her Money (And Book) Where Her Mouth Is

If Yiannopoulos is going to lose his book deal and his job, let us hope that HBO considers that they too are routinely promoting a man who endorses having sex with minors as a perfectly reasonable lifechoice. So if we’re going to shut down Yiannopoulos for speaking this way, let us make it very clear that we do not condone this talk from anyone. Not Milo, not Maher, not anyone.