It’s the latest fad [1] in the entertainment world right now: poking fun at conservative Christians defending Indiana’s RFRA.
During The Daily Show on April 6, host Jon Stewart mocked the rhetoric presented by Indiana’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) supporters – by comparing their situation to “making a Jew slow-dance with Hitler.”
“It’s been a while since I’ve taken the SATs, but I believe the formulation as you defend yourselves is this: this [lesbian] couple is to Christian business as [KKK members] are to everyone else,” he ridiculed. “Is that what you’re saying? ‘I’m not discriminating, I have nothing against gay people; I’m just saying, for some Christians, catering an elderly lesbian wedding is like making a Jew slow-dance with Hitler.’”
Continuing his thought, Stewart bashed Christians and conservative commentators.
“Do you see how f*cked that is?” he criticized. “Basically you see people celebrating love as a hate group.”
Citing comments made by former Republican Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, Stewart began his rant.
“So when gays want equality it's militancy. And when Christians want to deny service, it's freedom,” he mused. The law’s supporters, Stewart argued, “go very far out of their way to say how it's not discriminatory towards anybody, especially gay people” by “us[ing] analogies to clarify their position.”
“Which analogies do,” he added, but “just not in the way they intended.”
For examples, Stewart first pointed to former Republican Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum.
“If you are a print shop and you are a gay man,” Santorum asked during a CBS Face the Nation interview, “should you be forced to print ‘god hates fags’ for the Westborough Baptist Church?”
Next up, Stewart played a clip by political commentator Ben Ferguson.
“If a KKK member comes in and says, ‘I want a birthday cake made to celebrate the birth of the KKK,’” Ferguson probed, “should a baker regardless of the color of their skin, be able to say, I am not going to make that cake?”
Last, but not least, Stewart zeroed in on Arkansas State
Senator Bart Hester (R) saying, “I would think I would give the same right
to a Jewish baker to not have to put a swastika on a bill.”
Stewart concluded on a “humorous” note.
“So the lesson here is clear,” he said. “You are in Indiana and you get fired for being gay, make those motherf*ckers cater your wedding.”
Stewart joins [1] numerous late-night comedians – and celebrities [2] – in the bill bashing of Indiana.
— Katie Yoder is Staff Writer, Joe and Betty Anderlik Fellow in Culture and Media at the Media Research Center. Follow Katie Yoder on Twitter. [3]