Shock Jock Shock: Anti-Gay Radio Pundit Michael Savage Banned from UK

The British government banned 22 people from being allowed to enter the UK on May 5. Along with the Islamic clerics and white supremacists the Home Office barred for "spreading hate" appeared the names of two Americans: the Rev. Fred Phelps, whose Topeka, Kansas church, Westboro Baptist Church, pickets the funerals of American soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, and conservative radio talk show host Michael Alan Wiener, known more widely by his professional pseudonym, Michael Savage.

The news was posted at a May 6 article at CNN.com.

Savage's fellow pundits on the far right leapt to his defense, with some laying blame for the Home Office's decision at the feet of the Obama Administration, and many warning that the UK government's actions were a preview of what the "politically correct" faction in American society would do to this country.

No one, however, stood up to defend Phelps, whose congregation preaches that war casualties and natural disasters are God's punishment against America for its failure to persecute gays in the Biblically prescribed manner (i.e., by killing them).

Indeed, Phelps' own congregation, consisting mainly of the Reverend's extended family, has embraced its mythology as America's "most hated family."

Jacqui Smith, the British Home Secretary, determined who would be on the list of individuals barred from entry into the UK. The Phelps clan had announced earlier this year that they intended to picket an English university's production of "The Laramie Project," a play based on over 200 interviews with the residents of Laramie, Wyoming, in the wake of the murder of openly gay Matthew Shepard. The congregation did not make the trip.

Savage, according to WorldNetDaily contributor Joseph Farah, had not planned a UK trip, but was proactively banned none the less; Farah implied that the Obama administration had had a hand in Savage's inclusion on the list, and ominously intoned that, "Barack Obama and the Democrat-controlled Congress are conducting a scorched-earth war on the First Amendment."

Farah also repeated a baseless claim--popular among anti-gay right-wing circles--that the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act, which would add sexual orientation and gender identity, as well as disability, to federal hate crimes legislation already covering violent crime based on color, religion, nationality, and race, would "protect" pedophiles.

Farah also said that the bill would "punish thoughts and speech" that condemn homosexuality, an oft-repeated claim from the right with no basis in fact.

The Act provides enhanced penalties for violent crime targeting individuals based on certain personal factors. If the expanded version of the law is passed, sexual orientation will be among those characteristics, but "pedophilia" is not considered to be an "orientation," and no criminal activities are "protected" by the bill.

Any investigation of a "hate crime" must prove that a victim was targeted specifically due to protected personal factors in order for the enhanced penalties provided by the bill to apply.

Under the bill's existing language, Christians are already protected. If the revised bill is signed into law, heterosexuals who are targeted due to their sexuality would also be protected by the measure.

Some libertarians, liberals, and GLBTs believe that hate crimes legislation is the wrong track to take, preferring a more universally equitable application of the law in all cases.

These critics of hate crimes laws deplore any instances in which perpetrators of violent crimes against gays were acquitted or charged with lesser crimes because of the sexuality of their victims.

A second WorldNetDaily item, published May 5, quoted from an array of right-wing pundits who expressed outrage at Savage's inclusion on the list.

Rusty Humpries was quoted as saying, "Thank God we broke away from that cowardly country."

Radio commentator Lars Larson was quoted as saying, "I often disagree with the WAY that Michael Savage says things. I think he's often rude and crude unnecessarily.

"But isn't that precisely the point?" Larson added.

"That is exactly the kind of speech the founders of our country meant to protect with the First Amendment."

However, American constitutional guarantees do not apply in other, sovereign nations.

But radio host Steve Malzberg saw the UK's move as imperiling those very guarantees right here in the United States.

Said Malzberg, "I don't think Michael will lose any sleep over the fact that a country which cares more about protecting and appeasing radical Muslims than it does about protecting its people and promoting free speech and free thought has targeted him.

"However, I fear that this will now be added to the arsenal of the free speech fascists in the United States who are about to unleash their unprecedented attack on all of us."

Malzberg predicted that President Obama would cite the UK decision as a justification for infringing on Americans' freedom of speech.

Joyce Kaufman referred to the movie "Spartacus" but sounded more like she was quoting from Spike Lee's "X" when she exclaimed, "...I am Michael Savage."

Added Kaufman, "Do you stand with us for freedom of speech, or is this the end of the free world as we know it?"

Others were not yet prepared to write the epitaph for free speech in America. At the Examiner.com, Brad Kava exercised that right himself, writing in a May 6 article, "Michael Savage squealed like a stuck pig, a human swine flu, after Britain put him on its list of banned visitors."

Added Kava, "The repugnant former homosexual who is now a gay-baiting and hating conservative, Savage, said on his radio show that he would sue the English officials responsible for putting him on the hit list for defamation.

"Keep in mind, this is the guy who says that countries should forbid immigration and assert their rights to protect 'borders, language and culture.'" Kava noted.

"Now, when Britain is doing so, keeping his putrid hate talk out of its country, he's squealing, squealing, squealing.

"And lying," Kava continued.

"He claims he never advocated violence? Absurd," Kava went on, citing Savage's call for China to be "nuked," his exhortation of Americans to upbraid Muslims in public, and his statements that Americans protesting the war in Irag be thrown in jail on charges of sedition.

Added Kava, "On his short-lived television show, he wished a man he thought was gay would get AIDs and die."

That incident took place on Savage's MSNBC show, when Savage lashed out at a prank caller, Bob Foster, who phoned in and made a disparaging remark about Savage's personal appearance.

Calling Foster a "sodomite," Savage told him, "You should only get AIDS and die, you pig," a comment that resulted in Savage losing his MSNBC show.

Savage later claimed that he thought the broadcast had gone to a commercial and he didn't realize his comments were being broadcast.

Noted Kava, "The English are just following the prescriptions [Savage has] given for treatment of gays, Muslims, women and immigrants," adding, "It's exactly what he advised them to do on the air about Muslims: ban them from Europe."