Hugh Hefner blames religion for America

Hugh Hefner thinks religion has “screwed up” America.

The Playboy founder is “scared” of the way “right-wing religious views” have taken over US politics. The 83-year-old magazine mogul has lived in America his whole life, and insists the country has become increasingly “bizarre” and “repressed” since the 80s.

Although he is pleased to have been around to see America elect its first black President - Barack Obama was elected to the post earlier this year - he feels it has caused a divide in the nation.

“I think we're very screwed up,” he said. “This is a very strange country, and in a curious way it's become more apparent with the election of Obama. I'm a big fan of Obama, but him becoming President has brought out this really dark, right-wing part of America.

“Once religion got really actively involved in politics in 1980, with Ronald Reagan, we were on our way down a very slippery slope. And what we had with Bush was really bizarre, because his presidency was based on a right-wing, religious view – very scary."

Hefner also branded America’s involvement in the wars in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan “immoral”, because they were inspired by “economic considerations”.

“The last moral war America had to do with was the Second World War,” he told Britain’s Independent newspaper. “The rest were for all the wrong reasons. You can't force the rest of the world to live by your particular values. You have to be very suspicious of what really lies behind some political actions.”