Yes, the title of this post is a little bizarre. When you take up the bizarre task of responding to Bill Maher (half comedian, half political commentator, all theophobe), you often end up in this wacky territory. You see, Bill Maher is not someone to take seriously, and taking him seriously often brings with it the nagging feeling that you’re being duped, sort of like being really hospitable to Borat. But you also can’t ignore this guy either, because, believe it or not, he has an audience, an influence, and a misbegotten idea that when it comes to Mormons, he knows what he’s talking about.
Well, he doesn’t. Let’s repeat that: Bill Maher doesn’t know anything about Mormons. For example, he says that all of Mitt Romney’s significant charitable donations to the LDS Church (we’re sugarcoating: the word used was “cult”) are meaningless, since the LDS Church doesn’t help anyone poor with its money. Yet sophisticated research (i.e., the top link on a basic Google search) reveals that the LDS Church operates 141 welfare food storehouses and 322 employment resource centers and supports 8,167 welfare missionaries (i.e., volunteers working in purely charitable endeavors), and since 1985 has assisted in 198 global disaster relief efforts, donated cash and material supplies valued over a billion dollars, and distributed 10.3 million hygiene, newborn, and school kits. So either Bill Maher doesn’t know what he’s talking about, or he just counts newborn babies in developing countries as undeserving of serious aid, along with Cornell.
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