Real Time Host Bill Maher warned that Virginia gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe could lose the election because the Democrat says parents shouldn't be able to tell 'schools what they should teach.' 

'I said this months and months ago, that the issue in coming elections is going to be what's going on in the school,' Maher said on Friday's episode of Real Time. 

'Parents vote and they don't like what's going on in school. They feel like they are losing control and this became the issue in this election.' 

'Trust me, this is going to be a huge barometer-kind of election because if Terry McAuliffe loses, people are gonna understand, "Yes. Oh, that's right. It is going to be about that,"' Maher continued 

McAuliffe previously said he would not 'let parents come into schools and actually take books out and make their own decisions.' 

'I don't think parents should be telling schools what they should teach,' McAuliffe said on September 29 at a gubernatorial debate. 

Maher slammed the quote, calling it 'very stupid' to of the politician to voice his support for the school system's right to teach so close to the election.  

One of the controversial books being taught in Virginia schools is Toni Morrison's novel Beloved - a slave narrative about a family who is haunted by a baby the mother killed to avoid her being enslaved. The novel has themes of bestiality, sexual assault, and violence, among others. 

Maher argued, alongside panelists Atlantic writer and former teacher Caitlin Flanagan that the novel should be taught in schools. 

'I think that's a book that should be taught,' Maher said on Friday. 

'Now, it's full of stuff that's difficult, but we're talking about 17 and 18-year-old kids, it has bestiality, it has sex and violence - all of which they've seen on their phones when they were 10 and you locked them in their rooms.'