When Bill Maher was handed the Equality Award at last night's Human Rights Campaign 2007 Los Angeles Gala, he joked: "This is really gonna help me meet guys!"
Maher may not be gay, but the LGBT could not ask for a funnier, smarter and more outspoken ally who has said such things as "The only thing abomidable about being gay is all the time you have to put in in the gym" and "When homophobia trumps terrorism as an issue, wow. This country needs to get laid" and my favorite: "We're all equally free, or we're not free."
And those were just some lines from the clip reel shown before Maher took the stage. I scribbled some notes from his very funny and envelope-pushing speech. But be warned, it is not for the faint of heart!
"In America, there should not be two sets of Civil Rights one for people who put penises in vaginas and one for people who don't," Maher told the crowd at the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza Hotel. "The people who don't...are not in need of help."
He made fun of Ted Haggard ("How can someting so satanic feel so right?") and, of course, Ann Coulter. the room hissed when Maher said her name. "Why is John Edwards a faggot?" Maher wondered. "Because he combs his hair? She didn't mean that he was a bathhouse faggot..like Mark Foley. [She meant] someone who cares about the poor, who reads newspapers and who speaks in complete sentences. You know, real gay stuff."
He added: 'Faggot to [right wing conservatives] is a code word for liberal pussy...you know, like JFK. Huge fag."
Maher then compared this "liberal pussy" perception to the conservative self-image of being all macho and bluster, of being "guys who like to go in the woods and shoot each other in the face."
Maher made clear where his loyalties lie: "Fit me for a pair of ass-less chaps" if caring about liberal issues makes him a "faggot."
He then wondered about President Bush: "[He] spends two hours a day working out and his favorite adjective is 'fabulous' and John Edwards is the gay one?"
In the end, Maher told the crowd that "it is with great pride that I am one of your most siginificant allies..."
He then left the stage, left the hotel, and left us all in absolute stitches.