The Religion and Political Views of Daniel Tosh

Daniel Tosh was born in Boppard, Rhineland-Palatinate, West Germany and grew up in Titusville, Florida.

Tosh's father is a Presbyterian minister,[1] and he was apparently doing missionary work in Germany when Tosh was born.[2]

Tosh doesn't have particularly nice things to say about his relationship with his father as a kid, even though things seem to be all right between them these days.

You know, you can only cram your beliefs down a young kid's throat for so long before he goes, "you know, the other side seems to be having a lot more fun."[3]

That makes it seem like he's not too keen on the religion of his youth, and his stand-up is full of jabs at Christians, from cultish tithe-grubbing Christians[4] and Bible passages to[5] Christians who use their religion to hate on gay people[6] and WWJD (What Would Jesus Do?) bracelets.[7]

I think his willingness to make fun of Christians speaks more to his familiarity with the subject than it necessarily means he's not religious himself. Some speculate that he is in fact a devout Christian,[8] but I couldn't find any evidence of that either. It could really go either way and when it comes down to it, we just don't know.

Can rape be funny?

It's a little tough to say what Daniel Tosh's political views are from his stand-up, and we don't really have anything else to go on. His jokes are a little too over-the-top to be able to learn anything from them. He blames global warming on the Amish; he wants to bring the troops home, along with the war, so that they can sleep in their own beds; he said the phrase, "There's no excuse for domestic violence," sounds like a challenge; and he says he's conservative because he hates the poor.[9] So it's kind of tough to say.

We do know that Tosh will pretty much make fun of anything: conservatives, liberals, rape. He got in a little heat for that last one. A woman audience-member who was offended by apparently being the subject of a joke about rape at one of Tosh's shows voiced her opinion in the blogosphere, and an internet scandal/debate about the appropriateness of such jokes ensued. A slew of comics came to his defense, but he still issued a qualified apology over Twitter:

all the out of context misquotes aside, i'd like to sincerely apologize[10]

So in conclusion, we don't really know how Daniel Tosh stands on anything–religiously or politically–but he's pretty good at making us laugh about both.