The Daily Show host Jon Stewart
on Tuesday took a swipe at Tennessee state Senator Stacey Campfield's
“Don't Say Gay” bill.
On Wednesday, the
Senate put off for the fourth time a scheduled vote on the bill
that seeks to outlaw the discussion of sexual minorities in
Tennessee's public schools before the ninth grade.
In a segment titled We're Here,
We're Queer, Get Newsed To It, Stewart poked fun at the measure's
reasoning.
“You know keeping people from saying
the word gay is not really going to keep people from being gay,”
Stewart quipped. “Being gay isn't like Beetle Juice. If you say
it out loud too many times, you're gay.”
During an interview on CNN, Campfield
insisted his bill is “neutral” and doesn't judge whether being
gay is a positive or a negative.
“Hey, here's a fun fact. At the same
time this guy's bill is making its way through Tennessee's Senate, a
bill is also making its way through the Tennessee Statehouse that
mandates science teachers have the freedom to teach alternative
theories to evolution. So, in Tennessee the definition of neutrality
is gay people are not allowed to be brought up, but whether Adam and
Eve had pet dinosaurs when the Earth was created 6,000 years ago
[is]. We should really teach that controversy.”