US: Saturday Night Live opens with Kim Jong Un ‘evolving’ on same-sex marriage

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‘Saturday Night Live’ satirised the USA’s current focus on same-sex marriage in an opening sketch featuring North Korea’s Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un coming out for marriage equality.

Played by Bobby Moynihan, the North Korean leader announces changes to the country’s nuclear policy before going on to the “more important” declaration that same-sex marriage will be legalised.

“Lately, my thinking on this issue has evolved, mostly because of the experiences of a nephew who happens to be gay,” he says, adding that the nephew has since been executed for hosting a book club in his apartment.

The declaration parodied the change in position of various US politicians, most notably Rob Portman, who reversed his anti-equal marriage stance after learning that his son is gay.

A Mormon Arizona Congressman said earlier this month that, despite his own son being gay, his stance on equal marriage hadn’t “evolved” for him too support it.

Numerous US Senators rushed to declare their position on same-sex marriage before the Supreme Court began hearings on the subject, most recently Joe Donnelly and Heidi Heitkamp for, and Mary Landrieu against.

Saturday Night Live’s depiction of Kim Jong Un goes on to say: “Let me make one thing really clear. I have no personal stake in gay marriage one way or the other. I’m about as heterosexual as a person can be.”

North Korea has featured prominently in the news recently, following war threats made against the USA and missile movements hinting at aggression.

The President of the US Southern Baptist Convention blamed the heightened tension between the USA and North Korea on same-sex marriage, saying “The last time a nation did that they were destroyed, Sodom and Gomorrah was destroyed.”

In 2011 GLAAD attacked SNL for a skit which they said was “destructive and dehumanising” to trans people.

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