The Bilerico Project | Daily experiments in LGBTQ

I remember Gallagher from old reruns of his work on Comedy Central. Who would have thought he's a crazy rightwinger? (via Salon)

"Hey, President Obama," he spits out the name like a mouthful of burning hair. "You ain't black. I don't care what you say--you're a latte. You're half whole-milk. It could be goat milk--you could be a terrorist!" I am too busy losing my mind to catch the next joke, which is about Ted Kennedy's brain cancer. Aaaaand we're off.

Gallagher is upset about a lot of things. Young people with their sagging pants (in faintly coded racist terms, he explains that this is why the jails are overcrowded--because "their" baggy pants make it too hard for "them" to run from the cops). Tattoos: "That ink goes through to your soul--if you read your Bible, your body is a sacred temple, YOU DIPSHIT." People naming their girl-children Sam and Toni instead of acceptable names like Evelyn and Betty: "Just give her some little lesbian tendencies!" Guantanamo Bay: "We weren't even allowed to torture all the way. We had to half-torture--that's nothin' compared to what Saddam and his two sons OOFAY and GOOFAY did." Lesbians: "There's two types--the ugly ones and the pretty ones." (Um, like all people?) Obama again: "If Obama was really black, he'd act like a black guy and get a white wife." Michael Vick: "Poor Michael Vick." Women's lib: "These women told you they wanna be equal--they DON'T." Trans people: "People like Cher's daughter--figure that out. She wants a penis, but she has a big belly. If you can't see your dick, you don't get one." The Rice Krispies elves: "All three of those guys are gay. Look at 'em!" The Mexicans: "Look around--see any Mexicans? Nope. They'll be here later for the cleanup." The French: "They ruin our language with their faggy words."

But he has a soft-spot for gay men:

Above all, everything is gay, gay, gay to Gallagher. He leans into it with the borderline- nonsensical, icked-out, ignorant glee of a boy--or the protest-too-much vigor of a GOP senator. Gallagher delivers your Bible verse for the day: "Without God, we are nothing but dust. What is butt dust? Is that what you get if your homosexual isn't properly lubricated?" He relates a story about spilling mouthwash onto his crotch during a show: "Lucky for me, there was no homosexuals in the area--'cause my balls was minty fresh." At other points during the show, Gallagher says, "Men and women can't live in the same house" and "There's no way men and women can have a relationship." He says he can't remember why he used to feel pleasure in looking at a woman. And, "There's only one kind of homosexual guy, and that's the pretty ones--why do homosexual men have to be so good-looking?" Gallagher. Listen. Is there something you want to share with us?[...]

He opens a giant can of fruit cocktail and pours it in. He opens a can of some Asian vegetable--water chestnuts, maybe--and pours that in, too. "This is the China people and queers!!!" he screams and takes his sledgehammer to the thing with a fury that is no fun at all. Wet chunks of China people and queers fly everywhere.

I doubt there'd be the same national outcry about this as there was when fellow washed-up comedian Michael Richards went on a rant against black people in his audience using the word "nigger." That's not a comparison of homophobia and racism, since there's apparently plenty of racism in Gallagher's routine. It's just America: don't use that one word and no one will call you racist.

There isn't much of his new routine on YouTube, but this recent video has a few fag jokes in it. Anyone else's gaydar picking up anything?