Maher: Republicans are 'vaginaphobes,' should probably 'shut up' about rape

Bill Maher started off Real Time on Nov. 9 by conducting a quick recap of the elections, noting that there will now be six openly gay men in Congress, a bisexual woman and an openly gay female senator, while pot was legalized in two states. "We're becoming more like Canada, and we still have our nukes," he quipped

"I don't think we should lump gay marriage and pot together," said conservative commentator and writer S.E. Cupp. "It diminishes the fight that gay activists do," she said.

"Do not tell me I'm diminishing the gay rights movement," Andrew Sullivan, editor of the Daily Beast's The Dish, said.

Moving to a discussion of Romney and Mormonism, Maher said, "The reason we don't have gay marriage in California is the Mormons," who funded the initiative to ban it. Noting that Bush won more of the Mormon vote than Romney, Maher asked why Romney's faith was off limits during the campaign.

"It doesn't do Democrats any service to bring up Mormonism," Cupp said after Carville noted that Senate majority leader Harry Reid is also Mormon.

Maher then brought up the single women's vote, referencing Rep. Todd Akin's controversial statements about rape and pregnancy.

"For Republicans to do well in the future, they need the woman vote. Women outvote men by 10 million. Okay. Don't the Republican men, even if they have these views, in the future, have to shut up?" Maher asked.

"If you believe that human life starts from conception, then of course the circumstances" don't matter, Sullivan said.

"They're vaginaphobes," Maher replied.

Democratic commentator James Carville noted that some in the South say, "'You know, in order to get that boys attention, you got to hit him upside the head with a two by four.' Well the sound you heard on election night was pine on skull," he said.

Citing a Pew study, Cupp questioned women's allegiance to Democrats. "Women have grown increasingly comfortable with a bigger government, an activist government. If you look at the goals of second wave feminism, sort of sisters are doing it for themselves, somewhere along the way that message became, women literally cannot function without the assistance of the government. I think that's a really unfortunate place for women to be, but I'm not at all surprised that Democratic messages worked on women this year."

"I think it was the Republican message that worked on women," Maher said.

Watch the video, via Mediaite, below.