ROCHESTER – All the incident did, really, was prove Jon Stewart’s point. Here he was, belittling religion for making people lash out at one another, and lo and behold, that’s exactly what this man did.

‘Religion is the only true path to salvation!’ said the man, a security guard working the show.

Anyone who has seen ‘The Daily Show’ knows Stewart, who spoke at the Rochester Institute of Technology on Saturday before a sold-out crowd of 4,900, as the humble, unimposing host, always quick with a joke when tensions rise.

But when the tension rose, Stewart just shook his head in astonishment.

Stewart stood on an elevated stage in Gordon Field House with a line of black curtains on either side of him sectioning off a restricted zone. The incident started when Stewart was talking about religion, bemoaning how many people have died, all in the name of an all-powerful, benevolent God.

‘Everyone says God created us in his image,’ Stewart said. ‘Really? Have you ever looked at your scrotum? That’s God’s work?’

At this point, a guard working the show emerged from backstage through the black curtains and began screaming at Stewart about how important religion is.

Though the guard stood just 20 feet from Stewart, the comedian ignored him and continued speaking. The crowd nearby was yelling back at the security guard, though no one detained him.

‘Everyone always says God said, ‘Let there be life,” Stewart said, speaking God’s voice in a grandiose, official fashion, as the heckler continued yelling. ‘Really? Or did He just say, ‘Shit, this is due tomorrow.”

Finally, the guard threw his badge at Stewart and stormed back behind the black curtain. Other security guards followed to confine the man.

The badge fell harmlessly to the ground, missing Stewart. He picked up the badge and shook his head in disgust.

‘See, this is what I’m talking about,’ Stewart said. ‘And for what?’

Other than that one disturbance, the crowd warmed to Stewart like a kitten to fur. In his hour-and-a-half-long speech, Stewart covered religion, politics, homosexuality, race and the Iraq war. He also discussed less controversial topics, like computer technology, his pet dog and the typist working the closed captioning on the screen behind him.

‘The typist is a poopy-head,’ Stewart said, staring back at the screen to see if the closed captioning would show up. When it did, the crowd erupted.

Stewart started the show talking about religion (a topic he’d revisit throughout) by wishing everyone a happy Jewish new year.

‘Where’d you go for the Jewish new year?’ Stewart asked. ‘You go to Times Square? It’s a lot quieter than the regular New Year. Just a couple Jews walking around.’

For a political satirist, Stewart spent only a short amount of time talking about politics.

‘Here’s the thing. I don’t believe this president is stupid,’ Stewart said. ‘Stupid is like, ‘Oh my God, I just ate soap.”

Not surprisingly, though, Stewart did lampoon President Bush.

‘It upset me that five days after the hurricane hit in New Orleans, he called a day of prayer,’ Stewart said of Bush. ‘I would’ve thought a truck of food would be the way to go. … And isn’t a hurricane the act of God?’

Stewart’s audience, as usual, was unquestionably left-leaning. Still, when Stewart mentioned how both the House of Representatives and Senate were controlled by Republicans, a smattering of cheers surfaced.

Stewart spent much time demeaning both parties.

‘But to give some credit to the Democrats, Jesus will return soon in all his rapture,’ Stewart said, again intertwining religion with his speech. ‘And when that happens, the saved will ascend to heaven, and the damned will go to hell. And it is at this point that I believe the Democrats will regain control of the Congress.’

Stewart also offered his sniggering, childish Bush impression.

‘Freedom is good, it’s on the march,’ Stewart said in his best Bush voice. ‘Freedom is good, it tastes like ice cream.’

Ultimately, Stewart marketed himself as a centrist. On school shootings, he mocked the left for wanting to ban all guns, ‘because no one ever got killed before guns,’ and the right for wanting to plaster the Ten Commandments in schools. He ridiculed the right for creating the intelligent design theory and the left for believing science explains it all, even consciousness and creativity.

He also offered opinions on divisive issues.

On the gay agenda: ‘(Politicians) prey on people’s ignorance. I really don’t know about any gay agenda. Do people think if we give gay people a place at the table, they’ll make such a good argument we’ll start blowing them? … Your mind can sway and your heart can change, but your dick is incredibly stubborn.’

On cloning: ‘They have guys working on cloning. There’s six billion people in the world! Somewhere in a basement someone is saying, ‘I’ve figured out how to make people.’ Dude, sex works.’

On ethnicity: ‘There’s tension between the black and the Jewish community. For what? Two of the most discriminated-against groups in the world’s history. We should come together and get whitey. Wait, wrong crowd?’

On black culture: ‘Anything black people give us, we white-ify it. Black people gave us jazz, wonderful, soothing jazz, and we said, ‘I wonder what Kenny G would do with this.”

On the new pope: ‘Interesting fact about Ratzinger: He was a, uh, Hitler, um, youth. A Hitler youth. Now he’s pope. That’s good. I’ll tell you why, because normally Hitler Youth, kind of a resume killer. The interview usually ends right there.’

On religion: ‘At a certain point, religious friction just can’t go any further. Because the Christian says, ‘It is so because it is in the Bible,’ and the Muslim says, ‘Well, no, it is so because it says so in the Quran.’ And the Jew says, ‘No, it is so because it says so in the Old Testament.’ And then they just wait until someone shoots.’

At that point, the security guard was just appearing.

Many of Stewart’s jokes were dated, non-political and from his old stand-up routine. Some were the exact same as when he spoke at RIT in 2003, though no one seemed to mind. He spoke about the Y2K buzz and how he struggles with computer games. He also gave a story about his dog’s bout with explosive diarrhea.

As Stewart walked offstage, he was greeted with a standing ovation, a George Bush doll as a gift and a handful of autograph requests by the workers. He walked back through the stadium’s restricted area with a smile across his face, undeterred by the angry officer who had stormed through that same area just a half-hour earlier.

Published on October 8, 2005 at 12:00 pm