10 Incredible Stephen Colbert Moments That Prove He’s Perfect For The Late Show

In a similar segment as Nailed 'Em, Colbert targets apparently terrible people who are tearing America apart, in this case a small town mayor who happens to be gay. Unexpetedly, this throwaway bit ends up being surprisingly heartwarming. You might initially think the angle will be that all these people in this small Kentucky town hate their mayor just because he's gay, or at least that's clearly what the Colbert character thinks he's going to find. Instead, the townspeople they interview all universally agree he's one of the best mayors they've ever had. Everyone freaking loves this guy.

Colbert does speak to a local pastor who opposes Mayor Cummings' efforts to eliminate LGBT discrimination, but he's in the minority, and all the citizens of the town overwhelmingly support the mayor's gay rights efforts. The segment is pretty amusing, but mostly it's memorable for how honestly sweet it is, a tribute to small towns and the fact that they're not all composed of backwards hillbillies. Wisely, the Colbert Report team doesn't even end the bit on a joke. Rather, it ends with one of the town's citizens asking how you could be against gay rights if God made people born gay. Good question. Two years before marriage equality became the law of the land, this was a touching sign at how far America had already come.