‘An American Nightmare’: The Story That Made Beck Say ‘We Are Becoming a Thugocracy’
“If you don’t think so, ask the CEO of Mozilla,” Beck said on his radio program.
Brendan Eich was pressured to resign as CEO of Mozilla Thursday after it was revealed that he donated $1,000 in support of California’s Proposition 8 — a measure to ban gay marriage — six years ago.
Glenn Beck speaks on his radio program April 4, 2014. (Photo: TheBlaze TV)
After being eviscerated on social media and even by private companies, Eich and Mozilla both issued apologies.
“Mozilla prides itself on being held to a different standard and, this past week, we didn’t live up to it. We know why people are hurt and angry, and they are right: it’s because we haven’t stayed true to ourselves,” Mozilla said in a statement.
Beck said on the radio: “So wait a minute, let me understand this. Being true to yourselves involves firing people who took advantage of the Constitution? Being true to yourselves involves digging up a man’s private political activity six years ago and taking away his livelihood as a result?”
The uproar over Eich’s donation even reached the dating site OkCupid, which asked users not to use the web browser Firefox, created by Mozilla, and said those who “deny love and instead enforce misery, shame, and frustration” are their “enemies.”
Beck remarked sarcastically: “Why not just tie a rock around them, throw them in a lake and if they float, they’re a witch? … Why not just skin them alive and drop them in a vat of acid? Because really, do they deserve to live?”
Beck continued: “Let’s look at this reasonably here for a minute. Did Brendan Eich really do what OkCupid claimed he did with his political activity? Did he ‘enforce misery’? [Or was he] expressing his constitutionally protected rights?”
“To the fine folks at Mozilla … how about growing a set of balls?” Beck said. “You’re on the Internet, for the love of God … How about waking up to the world that is today and what’s coming tomorrow? Where we all live together and we all just share views and we don’t bully people out of the marketplace?”
Beck said Mozilla should have released a statement that said: “We support the constitutional rights of all of our employees to express themselves politically without the fear of retribution. This is America and the first principle of this nation is the right of expression. While we disagree with Mr. Eich’s stand, we support his right to be true to the dictates of his conscience, and we support the rights of everyone in the homosexual community to vehemently disagree with Mr. Eich … We will not, however, cave in to the un-American attempt to squash free political thought, expression and political viewpoints, no matter who’s behind the effort.”
Beck said what happened was not loving, inclusive or diverse, but rather “an American nightmare.”