Emma Thompson's Ill-Received Joke

Actress Emma Thompson made a remark about a county in England being violently homophobic on a U.S. talk show, upsetting a number of local politicians.

While interviewing Thompson, Late Late Show host Craig Ferguson said he had just visited Catalina Island, located off the coast of Los Angeles. He described it as being like the Isle of Wight, which is located in the English Channel.

"Oh, they stone homosexuals there? Nice," Thompson jokingly said. "I think they are still allowed to flog them, which of course some of them enjoy. I think they are allowed to shoot Irish or Scottish people if they arrive on the island -- it is still in the rules. They are allowed to torture people. It's lovely, you should go."

However, local politicians -- including the island's council leader David Pugh -- aren't laughing.

"The island is a very diverse and welcoming place," he said, according to The Telegraph (U.K.) "Her claims are much ado about nothing and as outlandlish as some of the fiction in the Harry Potter films she has been working on. If there was a Golden Globe award for Best Fictional Claims on a Chat Show, Emma Thompson would win it hands-down."

Isle of Wight Tory MP Andrew Turner extended an invitation for Thompson to visit the island.

"The Isle of Wight is known as a friendly and welcoming tourist destination, and if Emma Thompson had ever been here she would know that," he said in the article. "I hope she said this in a lighthearted way, and it will be taken that way, because it's clearly rubbish."