Lots of people knew proposition 8 was reprehensible and protested accordingly. Eich chose not to listen.
> if we purge people based on their political opinions, why bother with democracy
Purging people based on political opinions is exactly how democracy is supposed to function. We regularly vote politicians out of office because of their political opinions. What other criterion should a democracy use to select leaders?
What does "purging" mean to you in this case? You've now provided two examples: firing and voting. What level of political disagreement justifies what actions? I don't think there's widespread agreement, and it's something I'm trying to figure out for myself.
Voting someone out of office is firing them. We're talking about firing.
So for the sake of LGBT Mozilla employees, I'm glad Eich was shown the door. I'm not interested in entertaining a bunch of fluffy questions about heuristics, expression of opinion, what "purging" really means, or whatever. That's just noise.