But what's the point of tolerance if you just blindly accept any view, no matter how controversial or offensive, without challenging it? I see nothing wrong with the position of "everyone is entitled to air any opinion whatsoever, so long as anyone else is entitled to challenge them". No-one, as far as I know, has attacked Eich, threatened him, etc. they've just expressed concern about his views, which everyone is perfectly entitled to do.
If you read the comments and tweets there were a lot of nasty personal attacks on Eich and reported physical threats against him for donating to prop 8 five years ago. A amendment that actually passed by the way.
I'm fine with respectful open discussion but the entire situation left me with an uneasy taste in my mouth. If another CEO supported gay marriage and it created a stir like Eich's case did, I would feel the same way. Imagine if Sergey Brin donated to a gay marriage group 5 years ago and it caused such a stir that sites like fox or disney asked you to switch from chrome. Imagine the thousands of tweets criticizing him and the right media making a spectacle out of it calling out his character. That would be ridiculous.
It's about mutual respect and discussing ones differences in a cordial human way. In this case, it was anything but that and the double standard was obviously apparent.
