A version of this item originally was posted at Media Matters for America.
On the March 23 broadcast of his nationally syndicated radio show, Michael Savage continued to discuss a March 20 report in the San Francisco Chronicle detailing the murder of a transgender woman whose body was found naked near a freeway outside San Francisco: “The wages of sin are death. You're gonna cut off your willy, you're gonna walk around in women's clothes, you're gonna hook -- you're gonna wind up dead under a freeway, Johnson. It's not gonna be an HBO special about your travails, and how surgery made you a happy woman.” Later, Savage asserted that “the capital of [sexual reassignment surgery] is somewhere in Colorado, near Columbine,” adding, “You wonder why the kids shoot each other there with black raincoats.” According to MapQuest.com, Trinidad, Colorado, known as “the sex-change capital of the world,” is about 196 miles from Littleton, Colorado, where the Columbine High School massacre occurred.
Among Colorado radio stations carrying Savage's show are KFKA in Greeley, KVOR in Colorado Springs and KNZZ in Grand Junction.
As Media Matters for America has noted, on the March 20 broadcast of his show, Savage called the murder victim -- who according to the Chronicle report “had been in the process of becoming a woman” -- a “psychopath” and a “freak,” and said, "[She] should have been in a back ward in a straitjacket for years, howling on major medication."
As Media Matters has also documented (here, here, and here), Savage has a history of hateful attacks on gays and lesbians. He has repeatedly referred to “the homosexual mafia,” claimed that “the homosexual dance of death” is the “seminal issue of our time,” and compared gays to “drug addicts.” As Media Matters has also noted, Savage was signed by Hollywood's Creative Artists Agency (CAA) for “representation in all areas” -- including television and film -- but was reportedly dropped after Media Matters documented his comments attacking singer and CAA client Melissa Etheridge for thanking her wife during her Academy Awards acceptance speech.
The Savage Nation reaches more than 8 million listeners each week, according to Talkers Magazine, making it the third-most-listened-to talk radio show in the nation, behind only The Rush Limbaugh Show and The Sean Hannity Show.
From the March 23 edition of Talk Radio Network's The Savage Nation:
SAVAGE: The wages of sin are death. You're gonna cut off your willy, you're gonna walk around in women's clothes, you're gonna hook -- you're gonna wind up dead under a freeway, Johnson. It's not gonna be an HBO special about your travails, and how surgery made you a happy woman.
I never understand these people. Guy is 55 years old, he had three children, he discovers there was a woman within, and he goes -- shots and hormones, three years of hormones, and live like a woman. And then you gotta dress like a woman for two years. And then they go to a psychopathic, sadistic doctor who does the thing for them. No more in Denmark -- I mean, the capital of it is somewhere in Colorado, of course, near Columbine. You wonder why the kids shoot each other there with black raincoats. But that's the sex change capital of the world -- in America, rather -- is somewhere in Colorado; they cut off the willies and they put on the willies, depending on whether you're a Johnny or a Jane.
And apparently it costs more to put a willy on than it does to take a willy off. I've always said if a city's gonna pay for this kind of insane self-mutilation, the least they could do is put a willy on ice. I mean, if they're taking a perfectly good willy off a guy, why throw it in the garbage? Put it on ice, save it for the next time one of these psycho women in the city wants to be willied, I mean wants to be a John when she's a Jane. Because it costs like 40 grand to put one on and 20 grand to take one off. I would say you can do a mean price of 30 grand if they could start saving the willies from these psychos. But that's a separate story. I'm into cost saving at all costs.