So the part about homosexuality being a choice was also featured in Tracy Morgan’s 2009 Carnegie Hall show, you know, the one that people walked out of because it was homophobic.

It turns out that one of the choice lines from Kevin Rogers’ account of the June 3 show at the Ryman Auditorium was also featured in Morgan’s HBO special.  This comes via a commenter at the humor site Videogum:

well, he did the “they can take a dick, they can take a joke” line in his HBO special….can’t remember the material he did around it but it was IFFY at best. you could kinda tell that it wasn’t “i’m telling jokes” and was more “this is what i really think” so i too am not really surprised.

The thing about comedy is that it sort of needs to be funny.  I know, I know, I’m setting a high bar here.  Lots of comedians are highly offensive.  But they manage to be funny at the same time, if they’re talented.

I mentioned Videogum just above.  It’s a humor blog, and it’s one of my very, very favorite websites on the entire internet.  Gabe is one of the funniest writers I have ever had the privilege to read, and he writes offensive stuff all the time.  Thing is, Gabe is, again, funny.  Guess what, though?  He’s pretty grossed out by these allegations.  And he’s anticipating what the response might be when it finally happens:

EEEEEEEEEEEEK! That is me, jumping on a table and shrieking. “KILL IT, DANNY! KILL IT!” (I don’t know who Danny is, but I would rather he have to deal with this situation. Too gross!) Obviously, uh, this is pretty unacceptable. I’m sure it was a GREAT SHOW because it sounds VERY FUNNY (JUST KIDDING I am BEING SARCASTIC) but as far as the politics of it goes: painfully reprehensible. And I bet you five hard-earned Disney Bucks that when Tracy Morgan is forced to publicly confront this and apologize, his defense will be that he is a comedian and that he was telling jokes at a comedy show. Man oh man. As someone who loves comedians and jokes and comedy shows, I sure hate that defense!

Me too, Gabe!  Gabe actually had a long-running theme on Videogum called the “Tracy Morgan Promise,” which was basically that he would attempt to bring his readers every clip he possibly could of Tracy.  Videogum’s pretty widely read, y’all.  I say that he “had” a long-running theme because this incident has caused Gabe to end the “Tracy  Morgan Promise.”  Probably a wise decision.  You can read his explanation of that at the first Videogum link I provided.