John Oliver Fears Ejaculation Into Cake in Colorado Gay Wedding Controversy

The Colorado Court of Appeals' ruling in the Masterpiece Cakeshop case earlier this month continues to be a talking point among pundits nationwide.

But their views about the decision, which found that  shop owner Jack Phillilps had discriminated against a gay couple, Charlie Craig and David Mullins, by declining to bake a cake for their wedding, could hardly be more different.

As we've reported, talk-show host Glenn Beck passionately supported Phillips's right not to make the cake based on his religious convictions, announcing at one point that "if it goes against my religious beliefs, you're going to have to kill me."

On the other side of the coin is Last Week Tonight's John Oliver.

The big story on Sunday night's episode of the HBO program found Oliver tackling the topic of LGBT discrimination, and he used the Masterpiece Cakeshop story as a focal point of his argument, which was suffused with his usual combination of advocacy and ribald humor.


At one point, for instance, Oliver screened a film clip of Phillips saying, "I actually feel like I'm taking part in the wedding. Part of me goes to the reception."

"Part of you goes to the reception?" Oliver asked. "I have a horrifying sense what that might mean." 

He then launched into a bizarre impression of Phillips saying, "In a way, I've been married 5,000 times. In another way, I come in the cake."

Oliver circled back to the gag at the end of the segment.

"It's past time that gay people had the same rights that straight people have," he said. "Namely, to be fired because they've been replaced by a computer, to be denied service at a restaurant because they're neither wealthy looking nor attractive, and more specifically, to have a wedding cake but not eat it, because they suspect a strange man, for some reason, may have ejaculated into it."

Here's the complete segment. The first reference to the Masterpiece Cakeshop story takes place just past the ten-minute mark.


Send your story tips to the author, Michael Roberts.