This is a partial transcript from The O'Reilly Factor, September 12, 2003. Click here to order the complete transcript.
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BILL O'REILLY, HOST: In the Personal Story segment tonight, one of the most controversial media people in the country is radio talk-show host Michael Savage heard on more than 300 radio stations across the country.
Mr. Savage also has a bestselling book entitled The Savage Nation and he joins us now from San Francisco.
You know, we're both on the same radio station out in the Bay City, KNEW, and I was out there a few weeks ago driving around, and I heard you attacking about the war -- secular war that we've been talking about here on The Factor, and you think that it's almost a much bigger orchestrated campaign than I've been defining. Why don't you give us your vision on that?
MICHAEL SAVAGE, RADIO TALK-SHOW HOST: Well, the argument is being presented as though Christianity is not the issue, it's the issue of a few atheists or Buddhists or Hindus who are offended by the cross. That may be true, but that's not the larger picture.
I'm sorry -- you and I probably disagree on this -- in advance. To me, the rated radical left is attacking the church. They're attacking religion. They want religion wiped out. Now I don't mean burn the churches.
We keep hearing about separation of church and state. Well, first of all, we all know that's not written in the Constitution. The Constitution says there shall be no establishment of religion by Congress, but that means that there should be no disestablishment of a religion by Congress, meaning Congress has to remain neutral on the issue.
So, if a man is a Buddhist and wants to have a Buddha in his courtroom, I suppose he could have a Buddha for comfort. If he wants to wear a cross on his neck or she wants to wear a cross for his comfort or her comfort, that's a religious belief. If a Jewish person wants to wear a skull cap in court as a judge, that's his religious right. It's his way of saying God is above me.
Now the issue is to me -- and you're -- it's cultural Marxism. What do I mean by that? What did the early communists do when they took over Russia? They overthrew the church. There could not be a strong church with a strong state. There was tyranny, it's true, from the -- from the czar, but the state wasn't as strong as the czar. Now you have a state, meaning the communists, replacing the church. So they had to knock the church out of the box.
I see the same thing going on here, Bill. That's the fight today.
O'REILLY: All right. I don't see it quite...
SAVAGE: I don't -- I don't...
O'REILLY: I don't see it quite the way you do, but I'll get to that in a minute.
Now you're not a churchgoing guy. That was another thing that caught my ear as I was riding around.
SAVAGE: Not at all.
O'REILLY: You don't go to church. You're not a real strong God guy. So why are you so...
SAVAGE: Wait, wait. No, no. Bill -- Bill -- Bill, I'm a very strong God-believing man. I just don't go to houses of worship, except maybe once or twice a year, because whether you -- well, whether people accept it or not, I am in touch with God all day long.
O'REILLY: All right. That's fine. That's your belief.
SAVAGE: I talk to God.
O'REILLY: But, you know, very rarely do you get somebody like you who are -- who was so angry -- well, you're an angry -- you know, you do that anyway, I mean, just to get attention. I understand...
SAVAGE: Oh, no.
O'REILLY: Oh, no, no, no, no. Part of your schtick deal is to overstate. Look...
SAVAGE: Well...
O'REILLY: You and I talked before. You're not...
SAVAGE: It's wrong. You're wrong.
O'REILLY: You're not a stupid man. You've got...
SAVAGE: Bill -- there are things worthy of anger, Bill.
O'REILLY: ... a Ph.D.
SAVAGE: Bill, Bill, Bill. There are things worthy of anger.
O'REILLY: But you overstate -- you overstate to get attention, and that's a legitimate technique.
SAVAGE: I disagree. I think you understate to get attention.
O'REILLY: Well, if you...
SAVAGE: That doesn't mean that you're doing it for effect.
O'REILLY: ... think I'm understated, that just shows how overstated you are!
(LAUGHTER)
O'REILLY: All right. Now...
SAVAGE: Well, it's a different style.
O'REILLY: But, look, let me ask my question.
SAVAGE: Let's put it that way.
O'REILLY: Let me -- let me get my -- I see it as an attempt to Western Europeanize the United States. The secularists want no judgments made about personal behavior at all. You see it as an imposition of an economic system, Marxism, on the country.
See, I don't see that because most of these people driving this love their big, luxury houses, love their luxury cars, and their banks accounts. I don't think they want...
SAVAGE: As the -- as did the Leninists who had the big dahkas (ph) in Russia. Remember there was never really all poor under communism. There was a very, very powerful class of the bureaucrats. They had the houses. They had the chauffeured cars. They had the bodyguards. That's exactly what Leninism brings, and that's where we're going in this country, and that's what worries me.
But you talk about Western Europe or Europeanizing the country. Absolutely. You hear it every day.
O'REILLY: Yes, that's what it's about.
SAVAGE: You hear it -- well -- well, that's one of the things that it's about, but part of that is deemphasizing the power of the church. I think you'd have to agree with me.
O'REILLY: Yes, I would. I mean the secularists don't want any -- look, why is Mel Gibson being, you know..
SAVAGE: Crucified.
O'REILLY: Right. Pardon the pun. Because they don't want this movie to be seen by millions of people to regenerate interest in Jesus who had a strict moral code. They don't want any moral judgments. They want legalization of drugs, gay marriage. You go down the list, no moral judgments.
You want to have two guys making out in front of your 4-year-old? It's OK with them. A guy smoking a joint, blowing the smoke into your little kid's face? OK with them. And I'm not exaggerating here. This is exactly what the secular movement stands for.
SAVAGE: Bill, be careful. You're overstating now, Bill.
O'REILLY: I'm not. I've seen both of those things happen, and...
SAVAGE: I have, too.
O'REILLY: ... I've -- and I've confronted the people who did that...
SAVAGE: Yes.
O'REILLY: ... and I know how they're thinking.
SAVAGE: I raised children in San Francisco, Bill. It was not a pretty thing to walk down the street in this city and be sneered at as breeders by the (UNINTELLIGIBLE).
Now let me say this. We keep hearing about separation of church and state as though it's a reality when it's an invention. Why don't we hear about separation of degeneracy and state?
O'REILLY: All right, but let me -- let me...
SAVAGE: You go into...
O'REILLY: ... ask -- let me stop you here.
SAVAGE: No, no. You go into a schoolroom. Wait. You go into a schoolroom. They're teaching kids in the third grade how to put a condom on a cucumber.
O'REILLY: Yes, that's wrong.
SAVAGE: I'd like to talk about that. Why do we hear...
O'REILLY: Well, you do.
SAVAGE: ... throw religion out?
O'REILLY: You do, and you've made a lot of money talking about it. But let me -- I want to make one more point.
SAVAGE: I have.
O'REILLY: We've got about 90 seconds to go.
SAVAGE: I'm a capitalist, by the way.
O'REILLY: Why do you want to demonize groups? See, I don't -- I don't like it when you say the sodomites. I don't -- I think that's -- that diminishes you. See, there are good gays and there are bad gays. There are good...
SAVAGE: Well, I don't even want to talk about that.
O'REILLY: ... straights and bad straights.
SAVAGE: It's the most boring topic on the earth, is the homosexual issue.
O'REILLY: No, but you use inflammatory words like...
SAVAGE: It's boring.
O'REILLY: ... "sodomites." Why?
SAVAGE: I don't care -- I love -- all right. You've asked me. I'll answer you.
O'REILLY: Good.
SAVAGE: OK? I don't care what people do in the privacy of their own homes. I've said that a thousand times. As long as children are left alone, as long as children are not proselytized, I don't care. It's not my business, hetero or homo or trisexual or bisexual or asexual. It doesn't matter to me. I think sexuality is boring, and I think it's very, very personal. Not an important topic to me.
O'REILLY: All right. Did you just say sexuality is boring?
(LAUGHTER)
O'REILLY: You've been working too much. All right. Michael Savage, there you go.
SAVAGE: You got me there.
O'REILLY: Thanks a lot. We appreciate it.
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