PARTIAL TRANSCRIPT OF BILL MAHER COMMENTS FROM
NOV. 16, 2006 EPISODE OF "THE STRIP"

[Hear the entire interview on The Strip Podcast here]

"I thought it seemed silly because it was Larry King Live and I assumed everybody saw it the first time. I was certainly not trying to out Ken Mehlman, I was surprised to learn what a surprise this is to so many people because I guess I'm in my little bubble world of political junkies and in that world, you know, this is about as much of a secret as Liberace. Everybody I know knew, but if you talked to a lot of blue-haired ladies From the Midwest and said Liberace they'd say, 'Oh, why can't he find a nice girl?" ...

I certainly wasn't trying to out Mr. Mehlman. I certainly didn't volunteer the subject, either. Larry kept pressing me on it and, look, these are the people, these Republicans, who made sex an issue by turning beet red for two years and pointing at Bill Clinton's penis as if it was the thing that was going to bring down the Republic, and then by making gay marriage such an issue in 2004. So it's a little hypocritical for them to turn around and say oh my god, how dare you bring this up? ...

I've also gotten angry mail from gay people when I talk about things that I feel are on the wrong side of the truth. I seem to remember in the 90s when AIDS was a much more controversial issue, to me, the completely honest way to look at it is that this is not a disease that is an equal opportunity striker in the United States. … And gay people didn't want to hear it. If we had fought that disease scientifically instead of politically, we probably would've had much great success when it was rampant. ...

I absolutely think that there should not be two classes of civil rights, one for people with penises and vaginas and another for people who don't. ...

Off the top of my head, I can't think of anyone else in Washington (to out). It seems like everybody got outed. Mark Foley got outed, that guy Kolbe in Arizona, that guy Larry Craig in Idaho. It seems like once week there was a new gay Republican tote board. I started doing jokesa bout the fact that the Republican party was gay now and people got it. I don't want to be the outer guy, I just want to keep it real.