JONATHAN KARL, ABC NEWS: Now the tech CEO forced out of his job over his stance on Gay marriage. Brendan Eich, who ran Mozilla, maker of the popular Firefox web browser stepped down after the uproar over a $ 1,000 donation he gave in 2008 to a group supporting an anti-gay marriage campaign.
So, we saw Andrew Sullivan, influential blogger, one of the earlier advocates of gay marriage, came out strongly against all this, calling it McCarthyism. Andrew writing, he will now — will he now be forced to walk through the streets in shame? Why not stocks? If this is the gay rights movement today, then count me out.
Interesting to me there, Speaker Gingrich, is Andrew Sullivan sounded a little bit like you on this.
NEWT GINGRICH: Yeah, I thought his entire article, in fact, was very strong. The people ought to recognize, if you’re a young faculty member in a lot of places if you’re a young member of a news department and you have the wrong views, meaning conservative, you have no career. This is just the most open, blatant example of the new fascism, which says if you don’t agree with us 100 percent we have the right to punish you. Unless you’re like Hillary and like Barack Obama and you recant.
So, they both had the same view in 2008 as he did.
DONNA BRAZILE: But there’s a difference between actively campaigning to define marriage as being between one man and one woman and not being a supporter of marriage.
GINGRICH: And so you should lose your job, you should lose your job if you have a different view.
BRAZILE: He voluntarily stepped aside.
GINGRICH: No, I’m simply saying that there is a distinction between where President Obama and Hillary Clinton were on this issue…
KARL: They weren’t financing that referendum, to be clear.
But where would you draw the line? I mean, what of his came out against interracial marriage? Would that be?
GINGRICH: I think the question you ought to ask yourself is how — do you want to live in an open, tolerant society or to you have to impose your views at the cost of people’s jobs? You have to, for example, bribe the Catholics out of having an adoption service in Massachusetts because they actually insist on giving only to heterosexual couples.
BRAZILE: Do you forget that today’s — some people can still be fired because they’re gay on the job. And that’s why it’s important…
GINGRICH: And now they can be…
BRAZILE: …we have fair standards. He stepped aside. He voluntarily stepped…
GINGRICH: He was pressured by public campaign and so it’s not voluntary. This was over pressure.
BRAZILE: But I do agree with Andrew Sullivan that we have to, you know, be very careful that we are not practicing a new McCarthyism.
Gingrich on Mozilla CEO: "Blatant Example Of The New Fascism"
