Last year, when Glenn Beck learned that outbreaks of diseases like whooping cough and measles were on the rise due to an increasing number of parents who are refusing to have their children vaccinated, he reacted by literally standing up and applauding those parents.
Now that the issue of vaccinations has worked its way into the 2016 presidential campaign, Beck returned to the topic today on his radio show, declaring that opposing vaccinations is an issue on which activists on the Right and on the Left ought to be able to find common ground and work together.
"I'm interested in moving to common sense. I'm interested in moving in the direction of freedom," Beck said. "And so when it comes to these measles vaccinations, we have a lot in common with the left ... and we have to reach out to allies."
While declaring that nobody wants children to get measles, Beck asserted that "there's something happening" with the measles vaccine and the rise of children being diagnosed with forms of autism that should make people cautious about getting their children vaccinated.
"God gave me a brain. God gave me personal choice and responsibility for those choices," he said. "I'm going to say no to those vaccines because I've done my homework."
Beck then went on to declare that people who oppose vaccines are now being persecuted, just as Galileo was persecuted by the Catholic Church.
"Here's another group of people that are now being rounded-up and pointed at and called morons and idiots and crackpots and crazies," he said. "Just totally discredited ... Where is anybody saying 'my gosh, we're living in the days of Galileo'? The church has become the state and if you don't practice their religion exactly the way they tell you to practice it, you're done."
