"Saturday Night Live" riffs on gay marriage, prison rape, flamboyant backup dancers and more

As though having Paul Rudd and Beyonce on as guests weren't enough, SNL pulled out all the gay-adjacent stops this weekend with an episode that referenced gay people, gay sex or gay cartoon lions in some way or another in nearly every segment of the show.

Things started off innocently enough with a skit about a family who kisses one another a lot, including father/son and brother/brother, which ended up with Fred Armisen trying to swallow Andy Samberg's face. Fair enough, been done before. But as the night wore on the skits got weirder ... for more (and for more video), click on through the jump.

Next we had a "Scared Straight" sketch where Keenan tried to freak out three high school vandals by repeatedly stressing how badly they were going to be raped in prison. ("There's gonna be a whole variety show up in there.") After that a sketch of four guys on a road trip remembering old times included Jason Sudekis having sex with a male cab driver and Paul Rudd putting his cell phone up his ass for a sexual thrill. And the Digital Short with Rudd and Samberg painting one another's nude portraits was heavy on the creepy.

By the time we got to Weekend Update and Snagglepuss appeared to speak about Proposition 8, we were well on our way to the gayest episode in the history of the show. (We learned that Snags is in fact married to the fey little alien from The Flintstones.)

But that's not all! A Beyonce video shoot introduced Samberg, Justin Timberlake and the New Guy as flamboyant backup dancers (in leotards and heels) who struck poses right out of a ball vogue-off and spoke like hissing sissies out of a 1972 exploitation film. 

But the gayest (and, overall, strangest) skit came last, when Rudd and Bill Hader played parking attendants disgusted at the Proposition 8 protesters gathered outside their garage. They started out by saying they don't get the whole gay thing but "live and let live" but then of course started going into detail about how they engage in casual gay sex but "just for laughs". The back-and-forth escalates until Rudd proposes to Hader with a ring and reveals his father gave his blessing and he's already booked their favorite B&B for the honeymoon.

I think (think) that this was a comment about how some people want to enjoy rights that they're not willing to fight for. Which is a fair comment to make, definitely. But the emphasis on gloryhole sex and rough trade cruising (when these guys were apparently dating and in love) made it feel like the sketch was an excuse for some more gross-out humor about gay sex more than anything else.

Did anyone else catch the episode? What did you think? And hey, weren't there supposed to be two new female cast members joining this week? Maybe they were off helping Darryl Hammond cut limes for the afterparty or something. And am I the only one who found it ironic that there were two sketches on the inability of gays to marry and yet the musical performance was a song called "Put a Ring on It"?