Christopher Hitchens

Quotations

Question:
“My question to Christopher is, how you can justify wanting to take something away from people, that gives meaning to 95% of the American people, and replace it with something that gives meaning to just 5% of the American people?”

Response:
“Ha! Well, what an incredibly stupid question. First I’ve said repeatedly that this stuff cannot be taken away from people, it is their favourite toy and it will remain so, as Freud said, it will remain that way as long as we’re afraid of death. Which is I think likely to be quite a long time.

Second I hope I’ve made it clear that I’m perfectly happy for people to have these toys and to play with them at home, and hug them to themselves and share them with other people who come round and play with the toys. That’s, absolutely fine. They are not, to make me play with these toys. I will not play with the toys. Don’t bring the toys to my house. Don’t say my children must play with these toys. Don’t say my toys, might be a condom, here we go again, are not allowed by their toys. I’m not going to have any of that.

Enough with clerical and religious bullying and intimidation. Is that finally clear? Have I got that across? Thank you.”