Sacha Baron Cohen's efforts to lure in Roy Moore included a $200 donation to an anti-gay nonprofit
Sacha Baron Cohen’s comedy starts in the places where a lot of people’s comfort zones ends; the Borat comedian has made a career out of inviting upon himself a mixture of scorn and discomfort, both from his audiences, and from the people he interviews. Still, that level of taboo-violation is going to differ a lot depending on the audience; for some people, it’s dressing up like a gay German fashion designer and trying to get Paula Abdul to eat sushi off of a naked guy. For others, it’s giving a small amount of money to groups that actively work to harm women and LGBTQ people.
Admittedly, the cash that Cohen’s camp gave to The Foundation for Moral Law—a nonprofit that’s filed briefs against same-sex marriage and abortion rights, and which has publicly called for the Supreme Court to “protect religious liberty from transgender activism”—in order to lure in interview subject Roy Moore wasn’t much: Just $200. But it is, objectively, 200 bucks that the group (which Moore selected as the beneficiary of Cohen and his team’s generosity in order to appear on Who Is America?) wouldn’t have to aid their efforts to actively make people’s lives harder if not for the show, which is definitely the sort of thing that can prompt thoughts like “Was that particular set of metal detector-based gags worth it?”
The reveal of the donation came out of the larger lawsuit being waged between Cohen and Moore. Moore is suing the comic for defamation over his appearance on the series, where Cohen’s character repeatedly ran a “pedophile detector” over the former Senate candidate, causing it to beep. Moore is seeking $95 million in damages, apparently; meanwhile, Cohen’s team has called for a change of venue for the suit to New York, citing a consent agreement Moore apparently signed before appearing on the show.