When a Cheyenne restaurant owner posted a PG-rated gay joke on his roadside sign, Wyoming’s top LGBTQ advocacy group decided to run with the joke and call for more.
The “Drive Thru” letter-board sign at Espi’s Restaurant at 904 W. Pershing Blvd. in Cheyenne reads, “What Does The Gay Cowboy Say To His Horse.”
Then a gap precedes the punchline of, “HAAAY.”
In response, LGBTQ group Wyoming Equality decided to run with the joke and call for more.
“What’s the funniest PG-rated gay joke you’ve ever heard?” the group wrote Thursday on its Facebook page, atop a photograph Cowboy State Daily had sent the group asking for comment on the sign. “We’re talkin’ cheesy, campy, roll-your-eyes-but-still-laugh kind of jokes. Drop them in the comments — we’re ready!”
Wyoming Equality Executive Director Sara Burlingame said the group’s response runs no deeper than “laughing at jokes that are funny, and not laughing at jokes that are cruel or unkind.”
The “HAAAY” joke doesn’t punch down and seems pretty wholesome, she said, “it’s just silly and campy.”
Not all joke-fueling stereotypes play out, she said.
“But silly and campy aren’t crimes, and we’re pretty proud of all the joyful resistance we’ve spun out of a little silliness, a lot of camp,” added Burlingame.
As for Burlingame, she said her favorite dad-caliber gay joke is, “Why did the non-binary prospector buy land in California?”
The punchline: “Because there’s gold in them/their hills.”
Often Edgy
Espi’s owner Todd Espinoza said Cowboy State Daily’s inquiry was the first time he’s been questioned about the joke.
Most people just laugh or compliment it, he said.
“I haven’t heard any negative response at all,” said Espinoza.
The restaurant owner has made headlines before for his habit of posting edgy jokes on the sign like, “Chicken gets fired … Chicken is broke … Chicken strips $7.50.”
Usually people don’t criticize the jokes, he said. But when he ran one that read, “Taco Emergency? Dial Nine-Juan-Juan,” he had at least two critics: one on Facebook and one on the phone.
The man who called the joke racist on Facebook did not appear Hispanic, Espinoza recalled.
And yet both Espinoza and the man who originally told him the joke are of Hispanic descent, he said.
As for the woman who criticized the restaurant owner on the phone, Espinoza said he couldn’t be sure if she’s Hispanic.
Espinoza cracks jokes “to lighten up the day,” he said, adding that he has nothing against gay people. The jokes universally are “nothing political; nothing against anybody.”
Perhaps he’d catch more heat for the jokes in other states, he said, but in Wyoming, most people are “past” political correctness constraints on humor.
Back At The Ranch
Dan Zwonitzer, a former, longtime Republican legislator from Cheyenne who is openly gay, married and raising a family, laughed when he heard the joke.
He was digging a trench on his yak farm at the time.
“We love that joke, actually,” said Zwonitzer.
For him, it has another layer since his family works with horses and encounters lots of hay, he said.
“Since we’re surrounded by hay all the time, we make that joke somewhat regularly,” Zwonitzer said.
The National Center for LGBTQ Rights did not comment by publication time following an email inquiry.
Clair McFarland can be reached at clair@cowboystatedaily.com.
