President Barack Obama fist bumped an employee at an Austin barbecue restaurant, after he loudly protested for gay rights.

According to the Austin Chronicle, 32-year-old Daniel Rugg Webb seized the opportunity when Obama made an impromptu stop in Franklin Barbecue, Austin.

As the President approached the till to order, Webb slapped the counter and yelled “equal rights for gay people!”

Undeterred, Obama asked Webb if he was gay, to which he replied “only when I have sex”.

Webb said: “That’s when he laughed and said, ‘Bump me’.

“That’s my favourite part because it was cool to get a joke in. In all the photos [all over the Internet], I look like a dead fish, but it was cool.

“I do stand-up, so it was nice to have some interaction based on, hopefully, something funny.

“If [Texas Governor] Rick Perry would’ve walked in, I would have lost my job. I would’ve taken that old queen to town.

“It was just a lucky day to be the register girl.”

Perry arose controversy last month, when he compared homosexuality to alcoholism.

He had said: “Whether or not you feel compelled to follow a particular lifestyle or not, you have the ability to decide not to do that.

“I may have the genetic coding that I’m inclined to be an alcoholic, but I have the desire not to do that, and I look at the homosexual issue the same way.”