On the September 27 edition of his nationally syndicated radio show, Michael Savage asserted that an employee of The Washington Times charged with soliciting a 13 year-old girl for sex over the Internet “should get a reward that it wasn't a boy. I actually was thrilled to see it was only a girl.” He then added: “I mean, there is still a normal pervert out there. It's hard to believe.” Savage also claimed that there is an “obsession with child molestation” in “the American media,” which is engaging in a “new witch hunt” against child molesters because “they don't have the guts to take on radical Islam.”

The previous day, on the September 26 edition of The Savage Nation, Savage vowed “not to use the word 'gay' anymore,” but to replace it with “hedonist,” which he claimed better describes “the lifestyle of the homosexual.” Later in the broadcast, Savage declared that “the gay community won't let you see the children dying” of diseases such as “leukemia,” because they “tell you that their disease is the only disease that's permissible to be shown in the media.” Savage then added: “I mean, AIDS is a horrible disease, but it isn't the only disease.”

As Media Matters for America has documented, Savage has made numerous anti-homosexual remarks, most notably when he claimed that “they infiltrated [the Catholic Church] with homosexual priests” that then “became child molesters.”

From the September 27 edition of Talk Radio Network's The Savage Nation:

SAVAGE: Washington Times employee arrested in sting, just popped up. Metropolitan police today charged the director of human resources [chuckle] at The Washington Times with one count of trying to entice a minor on the Internet. Randall Casseday, 53, was arrested at 9:45 p.m. yesterday with where police said he had arranged to meet a 13-year-old girl. He had actually exchanged Internet messages and photographs with a male police officer posing as a girl. Well, OK, great. I actually think he should get a reward that it wasn't with a boy. I actually was thrilled to see it was only a girl. I'm not saying it was good that he did it. But don't get me wrong, I was stunned that it was with a girl. I mean, there is still a normal pervert out there. It's hard to believe. There are still normal perverts? It's shocking.

[...]

SAVAGE: I think it's a very dangerous trend. Not only the obsession with child molestation, which is an obsession, by the way, with the American media right now because they don't have the guts to take on radical Islam so they make a big deal out of child molestation. It's like a new hysteria. It's the new witch hunt. Going after child molesters today is the equivalent of witch hunts in Pilgrim times. Everyone is suspected of being a witch or a child molester because -- well, many different reasons.

From the September 26 edition of The Savage Nation:

SAVAGE: The entire left wing is governed by the hedonists, and the hedonists are the most unforgiving element in American society, and it transcends both parties, it transcends all races. The hedonists run everything, and the hedonists put their hedonism above all other things.

CALLER: OK. Well --

SAVAGE: That's how I see it. [Caller], I honestly do see it that way, and I've decided to not use the word “gay” anymore. Instead I'm using the word “hedonist” because I think it more aptly describes what I'm trying to say because the lifestyle of the homosexual and the lifestyle of a heterosexual hedonist is almost the same. So therefore, I would say the hedonist and hedonism is a better description of what I'm trying to get at with regard to why I'm hated in the media.

CALLER: That would -- that makes sense.

[...]

SAVAGE: How do you explain children -- how do you explain children who have leukemia who suffer a horrible death and then die at 6 in a back ward, and no one ever sees them because the gay community won't let you see the children dying? They only let you see the gays, who tell you that their disease is the only disease that's permissible to be shown in the media. I mean, AIDS is a horrible disease, but it isn't the only disease.

Andrew Ironside is an intern at Media Matters for America.