Stephen Colbert is in trouble for saying that the only thing Donald Trump’s “mouth is good for is being Vladimir Putin’s cock holster”. Is that funny? I thought so. That doesn’t mean Colbert, a satirist, shouldn’t be criticized. But that he is being investigated by the federal government – as the FCC is now doing following complaints it received – should alarm us all.

As a gay man, I didn’t find the joke offensive because, to me, fellatio isn’t offensive. I tell and laugh at jokes about oral sex and politics all the time. One of my first cover stories for the Village Voice was called “Who do we have to blow to get gay marriage?” Colbert might not be gay, but he used camp humor – an important part of gay culture – to deride the anti-gay president.

Stephen Colbert to be investigated by FCC after 'offensive' Trump joke Read more

Camp has always been wickedly used to skewer American norms – and what is more worthy of subversion than our idiotic Republican president? The object of Colbert’s derision was clearly Trump. It matters that he is a relatively kind and thoughtful satirist who mostly “punches up”.



That said, the critique about Colbert’s joke is fair, just as it has been fair to critique the mural and memes of Trump and Putin kissing. In listening to other queer people over the last week, I better understand how the “cock holster” joke could be hurtful. But these are all things we can debate as a society – and we are!

A great thing about our time is that debates about representations in media once dominated by Stuart Hall and bell hooks now allow anyone with internet access to weigh in. It is a fantastic thing about our age that so many consumers of mass media analyze and speak out about what they’re expected to absorb without thinking.

The reaction to Colbert’s joke has made me reflect upon how, in 2010, I profiled the gay rights activist Lt Dan Choi, who became a recognizable face in repealing the military’s Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell ban against open military service by LGBT people. In my profile, I wrote how Choi insulted the then Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, by calling him “a pussy” who’d “be bleeding once a month” after a repeal of the ban failed in Congress.

The backlash against that quote was loud, and while I stand by my right as a journalist to have reported what Choi said, I welcomed the passionate debates about language that the quote prompted. We’re blessed to live in an era where social media makes such debates deep, broad and accessible. That’s why I support viewers debating, yelling at or even boycotting Colbert if they want. What I don’t support is the US federal government investigating Colbert.

That the FCC is doing this is appalling, though not unusual. The FCC has long censored speech it deems indecent, and the supreme court ruled in 1978’s FCC v Pacifica that it had the constitutional authority to do so – even though the first amendment pretty clearly says that Congress shall make no law “abridging the freedom of speech”.

Anyone, particularly a satirist, being investigated by the FCC is worrisome, but the timing of this investigation is especially scary. Consider that the activist Desiree Fairooz was convicted last week for laughing during Jefferson Beauregard Sessions’ confirmation hearing – a hearing in which the attorney general said under oath that he had had no contact with Russian officials during the elections, when he actually had.

In this instance, the chief law enforcement officer of the federal government fed untruths to the American people, faced no legal consequences ... and then the federal government went after the person who laughed amid this insanity.

How late-night comedy went from political to politicized Read more

This is obscene, as is our puritanical government seeing fit to go after a comedian for saying “cock” on TV while remaining silent about the man in the Oval Office who once bragged about how “you can do anything you want” to women, even “grab them by the pussy”.

The federal government should be in the business of prosecuting the police officers who killed Alton Sterling. The feds should be making it easier, not harder, to vote. They should be making our water and air safer, not rolling back regulations. They should be figuring out why three Ferguson activists have been killed and what is to be done about it.

The federal government should not be investigating people making jokes, criminalizing laughter or prosecuting WikiLeaks, just as 30 state governments should not be drafting new bills to criminalize protest. We, the people, are quite capable – thank you very much – of debating among ourselves what jokes we want our comedians to tell, what words we want to use and when we can laugh.