Gay

Beginning his segment by highlighting the fact that Rep. Bachmann is leading polls in Iowa, a state arbitrarily chosen as pivotal to primary races, Stewart noted that she was gaining traction despite Rep. Bachmann having some questionable views on the LGBT community– namely, believing that homosexuality is “bondage, personal bondage, personal enslavement” and that “gay” is a “satanic” thing. Standing right beside her on this sentiment? Her husband Marcus, who works in the mental health industry attempting, it has been reported, to help gay people cope with their orientation by renouncing it.

Stewart kept his jokes fairly on target until he played a video of the Bachmanns dancing, to which his initial reply was only, “that’s the guy teaching people not to be gay?” After sputtering to himself a bit about how gay Bachmann appeared, he allowed himself a few jokes, comparing Bachmann to “the Green Mile guy just absorbing it all” and calling him “one Izod shirt away from being the guy on Modern Family.” Then began the attempts to suppress his desire to ridicule Bachmann, which failed pretty significantly– “is he curing them so he can hoard all the gayness for himself?”– even with the help of Seinfeld. Stewart’s “comedic therapist” reminded him that he wasn’t “born” a comedian, “comedy is a choice,” and then proceeded to make some harmless jokes about Bachmann, like how his name is weird. Needless to say, it didn’t work.