The list includes two well known American gay opponents - Rev. Fred Phelps and talk-radio host Michael Savage.
Phelps is the founder of the Topeka, Kansas-based Westboro Baptist Church.Westboro’s members are made up mostly of Phelps’ relatives. Although it professes to be Baptist, it is not affiliated with any national Baptist group.
Westboro operates Web sites including GodHatesFags and GodHatesAmerica and has been described as a cult.
Phelps and the church first came to national attention when he organized a protest by his followers outside the 1998 funeral for Matthew Shepherd, the gay college student who was beaten to death in Wyoming. The killing, Phelps’ protest, and the reaction of townsfolk led to the play “The Laramie Project.”
Church members routinely demonstrate at the funerals of people with AIDS and most recently at the funerals of soldiers killed in Iraq.
In February, Phelps announced that his followers would demonstrate a production of the play “The Laramie Project” at a British college. The British government said at the time that he would not be allowed into the country.
The government ban announced Tuesday bans Phelps permanently.
Savage was placed on the list not only for his anti-gay remarks but also for calling the Muslim holy book, the Quran, a “book of hate” and for saying autism in most cases is “a brat who hasn’t been told to cut the act out.” Savage also said greedy doctors and drug companies were creating a “national panic” by overdiagnosing autism.In 2003, Savage launched into a homophobic tirade against a caller to his MSNBC cable TV show in which called the man “a sodomite” and told him: “Get AIDS and die, you pig.”
The network immediately fired Savage.
Savage issued what he called an apology saying he had been set up by a left-wing conspiracy.
The British government list also includes Stephen Donald Black, an American white supremacist, Hamas parliament member Yunis Al-Astal and Egyptian cleric Safwat el-Higazi.
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