Bill Maher says Brunei boycott is ‘chickens**t tokenism’
Bill Maher attends the Los Angeles Premiere of LBJ at ArcLight Hollywood on October 24, 2017 in Hollywood, California. (Vivien Killilea/Getty)
Real Time host Bill Maher has hit out at the boycott of Brunei-owned hotels over the country’s new anti-gay law.
A number of Hollywood celebrities including George Clooney have vowed to boycott the luxury hotels owned by the Southeast Asian state over its new law imposing the death penalty for gay sex.
The law has also led to condemnation from UN human rights chiefs, but Maher hit out at the boycott efforts in a segment on Friday (March 29).
Bill Maher: Brunei boycott is ‘chickens**t tokenism’
Addressing Clooney’s call for a boycott, Maher said: “This really bothers me, because it’s chickens**t tokenism.
“What about Saudi Arabia? If you really want to get back at them, stop driving. Don’t use oil.”
Bill Maher performs during New York Comedy Festival at The Theater at Madison Square Garden on November 5, 2016 (Nicholas Hunt/Getty)
He added: “It’s Sharia law, which in some form is the law in most Muslim-majority countries.
“If you want to be against that, speak openly and honestly about standing up for liberal principles.”
Ten countries across the world continue to impose the death penalty for homosexuality, not “most Muslim-majority countries.”
Maher continued: “This idea that the sultan of Brunei is going over the receipts from the Polo Lounge, going, ‘oh no, we only sold two soups today!'”
Brunei boycott slammed as ‘virtue signalling’
Right-wing pundit Andrew Sullivan, who is gay, branded the boycott “virtue signalling.”
He said: “The nice thing about a free society is that you can have a political life and then you can have your actual life. Love and sex and friendship, and not everything has to be political.
“The whole point of a free society is we don’t have to be that way… we can put politics in its place and we shouldn’t be dictating our lives like a religion according to the dictates of wokeness.”
Maher has previously called for Democrats to stop standing up for transgender rights in order to defeat Donald Trump.
In 2016, he said: “I’m on the side of people peeing where they want. I’m not suggesting that we through the transgendered under the bus or discount their struggle… but this is exactly the kind of culture-war issue that rouses a certain type of voter out of their trailers on election day.
“Let’s not die on this hill, because I’ve seen this movie before.”
