PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY ELIZABETH BROCKWAY/THE DAILY BEAST

Large numbers of liberals -- progressives with an open mind -- really do want to hear and read intelligent dissent from the opposition. But when in-the-know folks learned that conservative writer Kevin Williamson had been hired by The Atlantic, there were gasps.

I -- for one -- am not keen to read anti-abortion views calling for the mass lynching of women who have abortions, a public stance Williamson has taken more than once.

Writing for The Daily Beast, Erin Gloria Ryan points out that a bit of due diligence by The Atlantic could have saved both Williamson and readers a whole lot of drama.

Conservative pundits went crazy, arguing that contrary opinions were being silenced in liberal media. I left a comment on The Washington Post in their article Kevin Williamson loses Atlantic job after controversy over abortion rhetoric:

As a woman forced into police protection for a year by a man who heard me say one word -- "yes" -- on a TV panel, when asked if I supported Roe, I'm not objective on this topic. Atlantic readers -- and I am one -- are not narrow-minded liberals for not wanting to hear that we should be hanged for having an abortion, when I already was judged deserving to die by a real man big-shot who took Williamson's words literally. This is Trump authoritarianism in high-gear. It's right-wing authoritarianism in high gear. 3 women die every day in America by intimate partners and husbands who talk big like Williamson. The reverse is not true.

I freely admit that you scare the f##k out of me, okay? In defense of strong women, I will add that when the masked testosterone-infused chicken (the mask was pathetic) flew across my windshield as I backed out of a parking lot on a dark night, I put my car in gear and tried to run him over. 12 months of daily stalking rendered me a total basket case. Sobbing into the phone, I called the lieutenant at home -- he was so concerned about me that he gave me his home # -- saying "I don't know; I may have killed him."

If this is what saying "yes" to a question about supporting a SC decision gets women in this country, I'd think Kevin Williamson should be neutered. How's that.