an actress told a gay gala she always wanted a gay son, and the right-wing internet is calling it child abuse. babe, it was a toast.

via the Human Rights Campaign's own video of the speech, Fox News, the Daily Caller, Breitbart and the Washington Blade

Somewhere a straight 25-year-old who knows every word to every musical ever written is having a very strange week.

His mother is Camryn Manheim, and on Saturday night, Sept. 26, at the Human Rights Campaign's National Dinner at the Washington Hilton, she was the warm-up act for her best friend, Marcia Gay Harden, who was receiving HRC's Ally for Equality Award, the Blade reports. Manheim's introduction was a roast, and like every good roast it was mostly about the person giving it.

what camryn manheim actually said

Harden's three children are all LGBTQ+, Manheim told the room in HRC's video, "which is another thing that deeply irritates me about her, because I always wanted a gay son. I did." Then the bit: "I have photographs of my son in high heels, in full drag. He knows every word to every musical ever written." Beat. "I mean, truly, I thought I had this f***ing thing locked up. But no, no, he's the only straight guy in his entire musical theater company."

When Harden called her about ten years ago, from inside a closet, to say her son had come out, Manheim said her reply was, "oh my god, you are so f***ing lucky!" A week later a pair of thigh-high red patent leather boots arrived at Harden's house for the kid, which Manheim called "showing off." The rest of the speech was a sincere tribute to what she called Harden's habit of showing up for LGBTQ+ people, publicly and repeatedly. The son is Milo Manheim, 25, of Disney's Zombies films, per Fox and the Daily Caller.

how it became a scandal

By Monday the clip had been cut down and passed around almost entirely by people who hated it. Breitbart's headline was "Actress Camryn Manheim Says She Tried to Turn Her Son Gay." The Daily Caller went with "Actress Admits She Wanted To Force Her Straight Son Gay In Deranged Speech." Fox called it a "performative rant." The phrase in Breitbart's headline is not in HRC's video. The closest she comes is a later punchline about how her son came to be, in which she jokes that she did everything she could. It is a joke about a kid who turned out straight, told to a room that laughed. Fox says it contacted HRC and Manheim's representatives and did not hear back.

So to recap: a mother is on the record, at a gala, joking that her kid turned out exactly who he is and that she has made her peace with it. The people calling for child protective services are the ones who find that the most upsetting outcome in the world.