> The point is that if you were to apply the "you get fired from your job for this" standard evenly, the majority of the country would've had to get fired from their jobs.
Standards should be higher for folks with more power. The cashier at the grocery store expressing bigoted beliefs won't harm me much; my boss doing it is more serious.
> Nobody was being murdered here, it's not remotely the same.
I assure you, homophobia has its murder victims. (Including a good number of Holocaust ones.)
Obama opposed gay marriage as well. As did many prominent politicians, left and right.
The swing from opposing it to supporting it was a huge cultural shift, and I'm not sure I've seen anything like that happen so quickly, except maybe during a time of war. It went from being opposed by a strong majority to supported by a strong majority in... maybe 5-8 years? It was pretty impressive, and I think it's a sign that the marketplace of ideas can still function.
It helps a lot that it's really a harmless thing. It's giving people more freedom, not taking any away from anyone, and so as soon as it became clear that it wasn't causing a problem, everybody shrugged and went 'ok'.
Standards should be higher for folks with more power. The cashier at the grocery store expressing bigoted beliefs won't harm me much; my boss doing it is more serious.
> Nobody was being murdered here, it's not remotely the same.
I assure you, homophobia has its murder victims. (Including a good number of Holocaust ones.)