‘Saturday Night Live’ skit rips Gov. Ron DeSantis over Florida’s ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill
Florida was once again the butt of the joke on “Saturday Night Live.”
Actress and comedian Kate McKinnon stopped by the Weekend Update desk Saturday to discuss a proposed Florida bill that would limit discussions of sexual orientation and gender identity in schools.
Dubbed the “Don’t say gay bill,” Republicans in the House of Representatives passed it last month along party lines. The Senate will take up the measure Monday, and it’s expected to pass the following day.
McKinnon told the Weekend Update co-host Colin Jost that she feels the bill is “amazing” because, as a middle school student in the 1990s, she was “tortured” by kids who would use the word gay to hurt her feelings.
“To hear that Ron DeSantis has taken a stand and said ‘no, you cannot say gay in school anymore...’ I’m so jazzed. And in Florida of all places!” an excited McKinnon said.
But Jost explained to her that she had it all wrong.
“The law actually means that you can’t acknowledge that gay exists at all,” he noted. “If a kid confides that they are gay to a teacher, the teacher has to out them to their parents.”
After Jost continued to further elaborate on the bill, a now-confused McKinnon reacted in disbelief.
“I am deeply gay, sorry, concerned. It just feels like this is gonna make kids gay and trans, sorry, depressed and suicidal. And I think these laws are lesbians, sorry, unconscionable,” she said.
McKinnon — with newfound clarity — had something else to say.
“If the ‘90s were right, and gay means bad, then this is the gayest law that I have ever seen,” she added, followed by cheers from the public.
Earlier in the skit, Jost had taken aim at DeSantis for his stance on LGBTQ issues. Last year, DeSantis signed a bill banning transgender females from participating in women’s and girls’ scholastic sports.
As a photo was shown of a squinting DeSantis, Jost said: “Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, seen here being told someone’s pronouns...,” drawing laughs and applause from the crowd.
“Why does SNL want to teach 3-8 year old children about sex, without telling their parents?” Christina Pushaw, DeSantis’ press secretary, said Sunday in a tweet.
But the bill does not prohibit teaching about sex. It would instead ban “classroom instruction by school personnel or third parties on sexual orientation or gender identity” for students up to the third grade.
On Sunday night, Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava and Commissioner Eileen Higgins met local high school and college students before they boarded a bus to Tallahassee to join others in front of the Capitol to rally against HB 1557, the “don’t say gay” bill, the officials said on Twitter.
Jost also made fun of DeSantis for telling high school students to remove their masks during a press conference last week.
DeSantis visited the University of South Florida in Tampa on Wednesday to announce $20 million in funding for cybersecurity and IT training opportunities. But before he began his news conference, he addressed the Middleton High School students wearing masks behind him.
“You do not have to wear those masks,” he told them. “I mean, please take them off. Honestly, it’s not doing anything and we gotta stop with this COVID theater. So, if you want to wear it, fine, but this is ridiculous.”
SNL saw this as another opportunity to take a stab at DeSantis.
“DeSantis yelled at students behind him at an indoor event to take off their masks saying ‘stop with this COVID theater.’ And there’s nothing more on brand for conservatives than dads screaming at boys to give up theater,” Jost said.
Reporter Devoun Cetoute contributed to this report.
This story was originally published March 6, 2022 at 5:56 PM.
