By RODNEY HO/ rho@ajc.com, originally filed Friday, April 1, 2016
Seth Meyers is the latest late-night talk show to go after Georgia, this time addressing the "religious liberty" bill that passed in the state legislature last month but is being vetoed by Governor Nathan Deal.
He's the third host in the past two weeks to find comedic material in Georgia. Samantha Bee on TBS's 'Full Front al" mocked resistance to the Georgia rape-kit bill and Larry Wilmore on Comedy Central went after the Emory students offended by Trump chalkings on campus.
In this case, Meyers noted that the "religious liberty" bills was provoked by the Supreme Court allowing same-sex marriage last summer.
He said the bill would allow "faith-based" organizations to potentially discriminate against LGBT. Meyers said Chick-fil-A could be considered "faith based," though "to be fair, anywhere 15 year olds are cooking your dinner, you're operating on faith."
"This actually underscores one of the problems with the law," Meyers continued, "how broadly it defined the term 'faith based' organizations." He then played a clip of Democratic state senator Emanuel Jones asking Republican sponsor and fellow state senator Greg Kirk if this could potentially cover the KKK. Kirk, after much hemming and hawing, said yes. When Jones said if this could be a problem for him, he paused for several seconds, then said, "does it present a problem for me? No."
"Any time you take that long of a pause to answer a question," Meyers said, "you're already in trouble!"
Then the NBC host wondered why Republicans are getting so stumped by questions about the KKK, following the Donald Trump brouhaha. "It's like getting stumped on the round one question on 'Who Wants to Be a Millionaire!' Meyers said. "I know a poodle is a dog but I want to say tree!"
He did give Deal credit for his plans to veto the law and played a clip of Deal citing a New Testament passage, noting, "Jesus reached out to those who were considered the outcast."
Meyers, tongue in cheek, said there's a "New New Testament where Jesus is opposed to same-sex marriage, teacher's unions, financial reform and Obamacare."
He also noted that Deal had some self interest given how many big companies were opposed to the bill. This led to him to make a semi-lame "Walking Dead" joke related to zombies.
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