Bill Maher's MO is to take one excellent idea and coat it with a fine dusting of nuttery. (Maher is, for example, vocally pro-science and pro-reason, but he's famously skeptical of the germ theory of disease and "Western Medicine" in general.) That's what he was up to on Friday, in a generally hilarious segment in which he pointed out that, despite Mitt Romney's claims to the contrary, the candidate doesn't really give huge, tax-deductable donations to "charity." He gives huge, tax-deductable donations to the Church of Latter Day Saints, which is very different. Contributing money to an organization which builds "castles" for itself (Maher's apt word for Mormon temples) and spends millions to deny rights to LGBT Americans is charity in only the most attenuated sense of the word.
Maher then suggests that donations to cultural institutions, such as symphonies, aren't really charity either, and shouldn't count as tax-write offs. That's probably a less valid point. (Culture really is a necessary public good, just like public education, and unlike the promulgation of somebody's favorite brand of divisive supernaturalism.) Whatever. The segment's cool anyway. Watch AFTER THE JUMP …
