Tolerance is a comforting and popular term in the Bay Area. What people there are actually seeking is the enemy of tolerance: harmony. I really don’t care about people’s silly justifications for not seeing the difference, because either way it’s generally a personal delusion, a self-deception.
I've seen Eich doing a lot of things in business (and posting around here) since the dust-up; I don't think he was “completely destroyed”.
Calling it a "difference of opinion" is really masking the entire thing. He was saying that, not only are LGBT people not deserving of the same rights that he had, but that we should be able to vote on what rights they have. Can you see how dehumanizing that is?
And I cannot take your bit about "tolerance" seriously when we're talking about someone who, themselves, was not showing any kind of tolerance.