The Daily Show‘s Al Madrigal took a trip down South to the two states openly gay statistician Nate Silver said would be the last to legalize same-sex marriage: Mississippi and Alabama. Madrigal utilized a stunt gay couple to perform “acts of simulated gayness” in order to see “which one of these backwoods, inbred, homophobic states will swim longest against the tide of history.” And the results were…interesting.

Gay PDA elicited a surprising response in Alabama, especially with one dudebro who was enamored with how “punk rock” the gay couple was. They shared a kiss at a state fair photo booth in Mississippi and the salty old carnie remarked how “mighty nice” their framed pic will look hanging up on their wall. Then — to really drive the gayness home — the fake ‘mos got engaged at waffle houses in both states, to rounds of polite applause.

While the lawmakers Madrigal interviewed seemed actually proud of their respective state’s intolerance, the people they represent appear far more tolerant — or at the very least, they have the common courtesy to fake it. But as proven by The Colbert Report’s amazing profile on the gay mayor of Vicco, Kentucky, sometimes stereotypes are just that: stereotypes.

But, even if Mississippi and Alabama are not as homophobic as one might expect, it’s probably going to be a long while before marriage equality comes to either. After all, just look how long it took Mississippi to officially ban slavery. Better 148 years late than never, I guess.