President Barack Obama shared a fist bump with a Texas restaurant employee who urged him to do more to promote gay rights in the United States.

Daniel Rugg Webb, a comedian, artist and musician, as well as an employee at Franklin Barbecue in Austin, seized the opportunity to make his voice heard when he found out Potus was visiting the food joint on Thursday, The Austin Chronicle reported.

When the President approached the till, Webb, 32, cast his hand down onto the counter and said: “Equal rights for gay people!”

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Obama responded: “Are you gay?!

To which Webb replied: “Only when I have sex.”

Laughing, the President told Webb to “bump me” and the pair knocked their fists together.

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The exchange was captured in a photograph, which has since been widely shared on the internet. Obama is reported to have spent $300 (£175) in the restaurant.

Webb told the newspaper: “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 Rick Perry (the governor of Texas) would've walked in, I would have lost my job. I would've taken that old queen to town,” Webb said.

But Webb added that, although he recognises the level of social progressiveness in the US, he hopes that the President will do more to address the anti-gay views of many of his political contemporaries, including those of Perry.

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Webb told Buzzfeed: “It would be interesting if he could call some people out for it. People can use a lot of things - religion, freedom of speech - to be anti-gay, but I need people to understand you can call people out for civil rights things.”

He added: “Even Obama laughing at something as, hopefully, acceptable as sexuality can show the difference.”