The Daily Show Punks North Carolina - Food Truck Refuses To Serve Gays

The Daily Show thought North Carolina might understand the impact of the state's anti-LGBT law, HB2, through the use of some interactive learning.

The Raleigh News & Observer recaps:

Comedy Central’s The Daily Show came to Raleigh recently to poke fun at House Bill 2 by operating a food truck that refused to serve gay people. The show parked a fake barbecue business called Bone Bros. Flamin’ BBQ outside Trophy Brewing on Maywood Avenue and the Ruby Deluxe bar on Salisbury Street earlier this month.

“I wanted to show North Carolinians what HB2 would look like in action, so I rented a food truck … and set out to refuse service to people by telling them they’re gay,” Daily Show correspondent Roy Wood Jr. says at the beginning of the segment, which aired Thursday. “HB2 says I can do this Jim Crow-level (expletive), and nobody can stop me.”

For the record, HB2 doesn’t explicitly state that businesses can refuse service to LGBT people. But it did repeal local nondiscrimination ordinances that included LGBT protections and replaced them with a statewide nondiscrimination law.

That law bans “places of public accommodation” such as restaurants, stores and hotels from discriminating on the basis of “race, religion, color, national origin, or biological sex.” But it leaves two categories unprotected: Sexual orientation and gender identity.