"It's time now for our periodic look at the latest news from 10% of the American population.” So begins a typical introduction to the recurring "Gaywatch" segment on Comedy Central's fake-news-show-slash-political-satire The Daily Show. Hosted by comedian Jon Stewart, The Daily Show has covered gay issues for years, putting Stewart's comic spin on subjects ranging from ‘Don't Ask, Don't Tell' to a ban on gays adopting in Texas to the legalization of same-sex marriage in Spain.

In the spring of 2005 The Daily Show received a Special Recognition Award from GLAAD for its "smart, incisive, devastatingly funny coverage of gay and lesbian civil rights issues, and its hilarious skewering of the religious right's anti-gay agenda."

How much prestige has The Daily Show gained since its premiere in 1996? How about two Peabodys, seven Emmys, and several Television Critics Association awards gained not only for achievement in comedy, but also, in 2004, for Outstanding Achievement in News and Information.

Many commentators view the moment in 1999, when Jon Stewart took over from previous host Craig Kilborn, as the point when the show really began to develop its own identity, moving away from standard late-night comedy fare to a much sharper and more consistent focus on political and news-related material.

This change in editorial tone reflects - as former TDS correspondent Stephen Colbert stated in a 2005 NPR interview - Stewart's interest in having “a political opinion...doing political comedy that actually has some thought behind it...mak[ing] passionate comedic choices, as opposed to, necessarily successful comedic choices.”

Given his talent for successfully combining the political with the funny, the gay community can count itself lucky that one of the things Stewart seems to be passionate about is gay rights. So passionate, in fact, that not only has the topic has been a recurring focus of The Daily Show, but was also the topic of a Saturday Night Live monologue Stewart did in 2002. “Why can't gay people be in the army?” asked Stewart. “You know what I think? The army's afraid of a thousand gay guys with M-16s going ‘Who'd you call a faggot?'”

Stewart even addressed the subject during a speech at a gala fund-raiser for the American Museum of Natural History in 2005. "I do wish George Bush would start paying attention to issues that are important for the country. Gay marriage, for instance. I don't understand why the religious right fears homosexuality. They say it's an abomination. The Bible says that shellfish are also an abomination. They who oppose sodomy must also oppose scallops."

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