Andrew Sullivan comes to the defense of a Mozilla CEO who resigned after his negative views on gay marriage came to light, and is applauded for his reasonableness. Well Greta Van Susteren and Sarah Palin cannot allow that to stand.

So some of you may have read how how the CEO of the internet browser Mozzila stepped down from his job after it came to light that he had given a $1,000 contribution on support of the 2008 gay marriage ban in California.

In response Andrew Sullivan wrote a rather thoughtful piece on what he saw as the equivalence of pro-gay lynch mob: 

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. 

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.

I have to admit that though I frequently use the Mozilla browser, Firefox, I did not feel compelled to weigh in on this debate one way or the other.

However Greta Van Susteren felt the need to provide her two cents, not so much about what happened to Mozilla CEO and co-founder Brendan Eich, but rather how irritating it was the Sullivan was now being celebrated for his defense of free speech.

Here is her headline:

Andrew Sullivan, is now the Free Speech guy? Free speech should include at least an effort at NO SLANDER yet he felt it was ok, when it advanced his career, to slander a mother by saying obsessively that she should PROVE she is the mother of her special needs child! Yes, a bully! What a world we live in, huh?

Oh yeah, she went there.

And because she went there could the Wasilla Wendigo be far behind?

Aww poor Sarah, bullied by the big bad openly gay blogger, who is now receiving accolades for defending those he feels are being denied their right to free speech.

Oh the humanity.

But exactly what about Sullivan's questioning of the circumstances of Trig's birth would be considered bullying? Here is what he said on June 13, 2011:

It seems to me we have two options. It’s possible that Palin simply made up her drama of labor, or exaggerated it for effect, when in fact it was a routine, if rare, pregnancy, and she had mild warnings that the birth may be premature, and she gussied that up into a tall tale of her pioneer spirit, guided by her doctor, who refused to take the NYT’s calls as soon as Palin hit the big time. I think that’s the likeliest explanation, given the sheer world-historical weirdness of the alternative. 

But it’s also possible that she never had that baby at all. I mean, if you read the emails and independent reports above and were asked if this woman were in labor with a special needs child, and that her water had already broken, would you believe it? Just put all the facts in front of you and ask yourself that question. 

So she is either a self-serving drama queen who didn’t realize her story would imply she put her child – and many others on the planes – at great risk and then winged it to make her story more plausible; or she is a fantastic hoaxer and liar at a world class meshugana level that, at some point, will make Weinergate look like a damp squib. 

To my mind, either option makes her unfit for high office, which is all you need to know really. And the fact that she has never been asked about this by any MSM journalist tells you so so much about what motivates the DC press corps. It’s certainly not curiosity.

That is not bullying, that is simply good reporting.  Something that his fellow journalists completely failed to do.

And, as we all know, he was not at all wrong to pursue this story.

Because only one month later we provided the smoking gun that would demonstrate that Sarah Palin lied about her pregnancy in any court in the land.

So yes, Andrew Sullivan is a defender of free speech. And no, he is NOT a bully.

But I know somebody who is.