A Look Back at Jon Stewart's Greatest Gay Moments

Stewart cut him off, angry. “No! The courts haven’t ‘done it.’ They are only re-affirming the natural progression of the human condition. I don’t understand why there’s always a fight. They will always lose. They will continue to lose. So why bother?”

Bennett, usually a pretty articulate guy, blathered about Scandinavia and the Netherlands for a while, then pointed out that gay marriage makes people (presumably straight people) take marriage less seriously.

Stewart all but snorted. “Divorce is not caused because 50 percent of marriages end in gayness.”

May 25, 2005
Gaywatch

Stewart opens this segment looking right into the camera and intoning: “Straights. Heteros. 90 percenters. Breeders. Exactly the kind of people who don’t belong in the periodic section we call Gaywatch.”

He gives a brief report on gay marriage in Spain, then switches continents. “We now go to Texas. This isn’t going to be good.” And it wasn’t. But the beautiful thing was not that Stewart was funny (although he was). It was that he was angry. His voice shook. He actually broke out of his fake newscaster persona while quoting some Lone Star politician about recent legislation banning gay people from adopting foster children in Texas, and said, “You know what's interesting? I'm not [bleeping] making this up.”

He then presented a clip of CNN's Kira Phillips interviewing an unidentified anti-gay spokesperson about gay adoption. This guest contended that a scientific research study in Illinois had “proven” that children raised by gay couples were eleven times more likely to be sexually abused than children raised by heterosexual couples.

Randall Ellis of the Lesbian/Gay Rights Lobby of Texas was invited to respond, which he did, pointing out that no reputable research backed up this claim. Cut away to Stewart, who concurred, referring to the "study's" author as a "knucklehead" and mentioning the "research" was comprised of an Internet search and had been discredited. Surely, he asked the camera earnestly, Phillips would set her audience straight on the facts?

"It's an interesting debate, a good debate, thank you very much," concluded Phillips. Her co-anchor Carol Lin seemed a bit uncomfortable, but just said in a mock-reproving tone that she had a few things to say about the debate that she'd get to during the commercial break.

Back to The Daily Show studio, where Stewart looked right into the camera and, well... screamed, "Why don't you call them on their bull[bleep] ON THE AIR? You're an ANCHOR for [bleep’s] sake!"

Nov 9, 2003
The Banana Episode with Stephen Colbert

One of the best Daily Show clips of all time, and not really for its political or social commentary, but for its humor – both intentional and accidental.

It’s ostensibly a report on rumors that Britain’s Prince Charles had a gay encounter in his past, but Stephen Colbert, reporting from “London,” says he can’t discuss it due to the UK’s strict libel laws. It’s the type of a story, he says, “a reporter waits his entire career not to be able to report on.”

Then he eats a banana, earning the clip its unofficial nickname of “the Banana Episode.”

He and Stewart demonstrate the rapport that made them one of comedy’s best teams, with Stewart finally cracking up when Colbert starts eating his banana, and totally losing it when he says he’s going to Shropshire to spend a weekend with a few dozen men and some stable boys, shooting grouse. “Whoever shoots the fewest grouse has to go through the spanking machine.”