NJ Journalist Roast Featured Skit With Gay Jokes About Sen. Cory Booker

Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J. speaks at the International Association of Firefighters (IAFF) Legislative Conference and Presidential Forum in Washington, Monday, March 9, 2015. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)
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The New Jersey correspondents’ dinner and roast that made headlines this week when Gov. Chris Christie (R-NJ) delivered a joking, profanity-laden speech, also reportedly included a skit with gay jokes about Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ).

The skit was criticized in a column Friday by Alfred Doblin, the editorial page editor of The Bergen Record.

Doblin noted that Christie’s remarks at the Wednesday dinner held by the New Jersey Legislative Correspondents’ Club in Hamilton, N.J. caught the most attention, but that he found something more troubling.

Less noted was a skit based on “Village People” music, a part of which focused on U.S. Sen. Cory Booker’s sexual orientation. Back when Booker ran for Senate against Republican Steve Lonegan, this began a minor campaign issue about whether a man who admitted the guilty pleasure of a pedicure was a real man — even if that same man, Booker, rushed into a burning building to save a female neighbor.

Booker has constantly denied rumors that he may be gay. Whether he is straight or gay has nothing to do with whether he is a good or poor public servant.

If making gay jokes about Booker is the best you can do about a U.S. senator who tweets more than James Franco and Justin Bieber combined, and who extols the joys of being vegan in every other tweet, you shouldn’t be writing for a living, you should go find a Fotomat and wait for a return to 1975 and a rush on Kodachrome film.

Even Christie criticized the skit during his remarks on Wednesday night, sarcastically telling the group of journalists that it should be proud of the skit.

“Tonight a song on Cory Booker being gay, all of you have really reached a new high,” Christie said, according to audio posted online Friday by the International Business Times. “Pat yourselves, give yourselves a round of applause. That was really great. That part I’m serious about. You know, there’s some things like, you know, that abuse of me tonight is just fine but that was really interesting. A brand new high for you guys. Congratulate yourselves.”

Booker, who is unmarried, previously dealt with rumors about being gay by saying, “So what does it matter if I am?”

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