"Yep, That’s Left-liberal Tolerance in a Nut-shell"

For those not aware, Andrew Sullivan is journalist, a blogger, an editor, and an author.  He aligns himself with many leftists on hot button issues like Obamacare, gay marriage and progressive taxation.  Forbes ranked him a few years back as one of the country's 25 most influential liberals.  Sullivan is also gay and interestingly enough, a practicing Catholic.

So what he has to say about the forced resignation of Mozilla's CEO Brendan Eich seems particularly note worthy:

It turns out that Eich might have saved his job had he recanted, like all heretics must. But given the choice of recanting, he failed. Hence the lighting of the fires:

Throughout the interviews, it was not hard to get the sense that Eich really wanted to stick strongly by his views about gay marriage, which run counter to much of the tech industry and, increasingly, the general population in the U.S. For example, he repeatedly declined to answer when asked if he would donate to a similar initiative today.

Instead, he tried to unsuccessfully hedge those sentiments and, perhaps more importantly, did not seem to understand that he might have to pay the inevitable price for having them. Thus, something had to give — and it did.

He did not understand that in order to be a CEO of a company, you have to renounce your heresy! There is only one permissible opinion at Mozilla, and all dissidents must be purged! Yep, that’s left-liberal tolerance in a nut-shell. No, he wasn’t a victim of government censorship or intimidation. He was a victim of the free market in which people can choose to express their opinions by boycotts, free speech and the like. He still has his full First Amendment rights. But what we’re talking about is the obvious and ugly intolerance of parts of the gay movement, who have reacted to years of being subjected to social obloquy by returning the favor. Reihan notes the use of the word “integrity” about Mozilla:

Let me restate Swisher’s observation: had Brendan Eich decided to apologize — had he decided to say that he had come around on the issue, and had he added that his donation to the Proposition 8 campaign was a profound mistake that he would regret for the rest of his life, and which he will atone for by making a large donation to one of the organizations pressing the case for same-sex civil marriage — he could have spared himself all of this trouble. So while Mitchell Baker talks about protecting the integrity of Mozilla, she might spare a word or two for the integrity of Brendan Eich, or rather she and her colleagues might reflect on it. 

This is a repugnantly illiberal sentiment. It is also unbelievably stupid for the gay rights movement. You want to squander the real gains we have made by argument and engagement by becoming just as intolerant of others’ views as the Christianists? You’ve just found a great way to do this. It’s a bad, self-inflicted blow. And all of us will come to regret it.

Let's hope there are many more on the left who think like Andrew Sullivan.

It's interesting really.  

While the media focuses on the disunity of conservatives and the in-fighting taking place inside the GOP, the hand to hand combat between the radicals on the left and those like Mr. Sullivan is being ignored.

Opposing thought is a good thing.  It keeps one sharp and forces a better understanding of where one stands.  But the kind of opposition represented by the radically intolerant left must be defeated.  Here's hoping the Andrew Sullivans of the world, in this battle against those radicals, emerge victorious.

Carry on.