“Would you support passage of a federal law that prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, specifically in the areas of employment, housing, public accommodation and access to credit?” that was the most pertinent question British-born comedian and former Daily Show correspondent John Oliver had in last night’s 30-minute episode of Last Week Tonight on HBO.
To give his 14-minute discourse some background: While they can get married to a partner of the same sex, the lack of legal protections for LGBT people in 31 states of the United States means that they can still be fired from their job for doing so. Even worse, lawmakers have actually made it easier for businesses to discriminate against employees and customers on the grounds of sexuality or gender identity in some places.
But according to Oliver, the only reason someone should be fired after their wedding is if their theme was “stolen office supplies.” He went on to voice his support for the Equality Act bill currently in Congress, which adds LGBT protections to the Civil Rights Act, the Fair Housing act and several others. “This bill represents the bare minimum of not being discriminated against, and this should be what represents the threshold of true gay tolerance.”
The HBO programme reached out to every presidential candidate (Democrat and Republican), and asked if he or she would support such a bill. According to Oliver, only four candidates have responded so far – Lincoln Chafee, Martin O’Malley and Bernie Sanders have said yes, Rand Paul no.
“States have a checkered history when it comes to civil rights,” Oliver said. “Just look at Arkansas right now. Not only do they not have any anti-discrimination ordinances, earlier this year they actually passed an anti-anti-discrimination ordinance that prevents any city or county from extending civil rights protections to gay people.”
As the host quite rightly points out, that’s the polar opposite of progress.
“It would be like if Apple suddenly introduced the iPhone 7 and it was a flip phone,” he said. “That’s still not as dumb as the Apple Watch… but it’s dumb.”
As you’d expect from any programme from HBO, be it Game of Thrones, True Detective, or a late night talk show on sensitive and pertinent topics, the clip below is slightly NSFW. Still, it is amazingly revelatory and might just teach you a thing or two about LGBT rights, even if you already know a fair bit. And, as always, it is witheringly funny.
