He said nothing about vegans. He is only talking about himself. You are making assumptions about what point you think he is trying to make, and/or belittling his own personal ethical stance on things, just because he is vegetarian. What you are doing is wrong.
But you are correct that I’m projecting a bit. This is because as a vegetarian, I’ve seen so much vegan arrogance, condescension, and outright aggression toward vegetarians that I am indeed particularly sensitive to it. So if I see it I call it out. In my experience, an average vegan has more hostility toward a lifelong vegetarian than they have toward a lifelong meat-eater (granted that most vegans hold no hostility at all— so this would be a smaller subset of vegans that do hold hostility— a great many can be seen on any random Facebook vegan group).
But you are correct that I’m projecting a bit. This is because as a vegetarian, I’ve seen so much vegan arrogance, condescension, and outright aggression toward vegetarians that I am indeed particularly sensitive to it. So if I see it I call it out. In my experience, an average vegan has more hostility toward a lifelong vegetarian than they have toward a lifelong meat-eater (granted that most vegans hold no hostility at all— so this would be a smaller subset of vegans that do hold hostility— a great many can be seen on any random Facebook vegan group).