After a packed cold open featuring Putin apologists Tucker Carlson, Laura Ingraham, Donald Trump, and Steven Seagal raising money for Russian oligarchs as part of the “Fox News Ukrainian Invasion Celebration Spectacular,” this week’s SNL Weekend Update brought on cast member Kate McKinnon, who is openly gay, to address Florida’s deeply homophobic “Don’t Say Gay” bill.
The legislation, which recently passed Florida’s House of Representatives, would ban “classroom discussion about sexual orientation or gender identity” in the state’s primary schools. The bill, championed by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, will now head to the GOP-controlled Senate where it is expected to pass.
“I’m sorry to barge in here… I heard about this law, and I think it’s amazing,” offered McKinnon, clearly in jest. “When I was in middle school in the ’90s, I was kind of, like, tortured by the constant use of the word ‘gay’—like, ‘That’s so gay’ or ‘Ew, you’re gay.’ It made me feel so horrible. So, to hear that Ron DeSantis has taken a stand and said, ‘No! You cannot say ‘gay’ in school anymore!’ I’m so jazzed. And in Florida of all places!”
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Weekend Update co-anchor Colin Jost then felt compelled to correct the facetious McKinnon.
“I feel like there’s been a misunderstanding,” he told her. “The law actually means that you can’t acknowledge that gay exists at all… teachers can’t speak about gay people in history or if a kid has a gay family member… and if a kid confides that they’re gay to a teacher, the teacher has to out them to their parents.”
McKinnon was shocked, repeating what?! over and over again, before mocking the ridiculously hateful and regressive bill.
“I am deeply gay—sorry, concerned. Deeply concerned. It just feels like this is gonna make kids gay and trans—sorry, depressed and suicidal—and I think these laws are lesbians. Sorry! Unconscionable. Unconscionable,” cracked McKinnon. “I’m trying to make sense of all this. Does this ‘Don’t Say Gay’ law have a purpose?”
Jost did not have an answer. And with that, McKinnon closed out the bit by singing the word “gay” over and over again to the tune of Deep Purple’s “Smoke on the Water.”
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