UK ban remains on homophobic US shock jock
January 13th, 2010 by Martina.Booth
A US shock jock who made remarks about killing homosexuals will remain banned from the UK.
Security minister Lord West said the “deeply offensive” comments by Mike Savage, host of the nationally syndicated US talk show The Savage Nation, could stir up violence if the ruling was overturned.
Savage has previously claimed that “the gay and lesbian mafia wants our children… it wants to homosexualise the whole country” and once labeled a caller as a “sodomite… who should get AIDS and die”.
He has described the ban as “crazy”, arguing: “None of my words have ever led to violence for the simple reason that I do not call for violence.”
UKIP leader Lord Pearson is campaigning for Savage to be allowed to enter the country. In the House of Lords debate, he said that the DJ’s comments should be taken in the “context” of his radio show, rather than in isolation.
However Lord West defended the ban, saying: “He’s spoken about killing 100 million Muslims and spoken in unpleasant terms about killing homosexuals.”
Savage is on a list of 22 people barred from the UK. The list also includes Hamas MP Yunis Al-Astal, the Westboro Baptist Church and ex-Ku Klux Klan leader Stephen “Don” Black.
Savage threatened the then Home Secretary Jacqui Smith with a £100,000 lawsuit for damages after he was banned last May. She imposed the ban as Savage was “seeking to provoke others to serious criminal acts and fostering hatred which might lead to inter-community violence”.
The Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, criticised the original ban, saying it showed that “a country once famous for free speech is now hysterically and expensively sensitive to anything that could be taken as a slight”.
What IS the problem? Savage has said that he has no plans to visit our sceptered isle for the foreseeable future-and anyway his show is not even syndicated in the UK(any more than Rush Limbaugh’s is). Personally if I was banned from Saudi Arabia for example, I would bear such a ban like a badge of honor-rather than “whining” like Mr Savage!
Terry Washington ∼ February 9th, 2010 11:41 am