Filling in for President Donald Trump’s most recent Medal of Freedom honoree Rush Limbaugh on Tuesday, conservative radio host Mark Steyn claimed that the reason why San Francisco announced a “shelter-in-place” order to contain the coronavirus outbreak is because it’s a “big gay town.”

On Monday, Northern California officials revealed that the nearly 7 million residents in the Bay Area would be required to remain in their homes as much as possible until April 7. “We know these measures will significantly disrupt people’s day-to-day lives, but they are absolutely necessary,” San Francisco Mayor London Breed said.

Reacting to the news, Steyn told millions of Limbaugh listeners that the real reason why San Francisco was the first major city to take such measures is because of the city’s large homosexual population.

“Why are they doing that?” Steyn asked, in comments first spotted by Media Matters. “Why is San Francisco the first to do that? Because they’ve got all the gay guys there.”

“It’s a big gay town, San Francisco, and they’re the ones with all the compromised immune systems from all the protease inhibitors and all the other stuff,” he continued. “And they don’t want all the gays dropping dead on the San Francisco mayor’s watch. So that’s why they’ve got all that sheltering in place there.”

The frequent Fox News guest went on to assert that if “there was a big gay apocalypse” then “Trump would get blamed for it,” adding that liberal critics would claim it was due to the president’s “homophobia” that San Franciscans died.

“So that’s why they’ve all been ordered to stay home,” Steyn concluded. “And it’s not easy staying home.”

Steyn’s inflammatory remarks come on the heels of Limbaugh’s homophobic attacks on former Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg. Last month, just days after the president bestowed the nation’s highest civilian award on the radio host, Limbaugh said “Mr. Man” Trump would “have fun” with “gay guy” Buttigieg kissing his husband in public. 

Steyn, meanwhile, had been somewhat praised earlier this week for taking the viral pandemic more seriously on-air than Limbaugh, who has repeatedly likened it to the “common cold.” Filling in for Limbaugh on Monday, Steyn kicked off the program by delivering a “wake-up call” on the dangers of COVID-19 to Limbaugh’s listeners.