This only became much of a story once he had already resigned, so I'm inclined to believe it was in fact a predominately internal struggle.
Some employees found out their boss doesn't think that they or their friends and family are human beings, and were not happy. What a shocker.
Spare me these claims of McCarthyism. The religious right started this war and now that they are losing they're crying victim. Boohoo. 
The religious right hardly 'started this war'. In fact, given that they religious right was defending the status quo and the gay rights movement was clamouring to change it, then I'd argue that it was actually the latter that started this... war as you call it.
I don't see anything wrong with intolerance of intolerant views.
Yeah, but on the other hand who acts as the ultimate arbiter of what 'intolerance' is. God? The state? I mean, on this particular issue, it was the decision of the business whether to sack this executive or not; I mean, I'm not a stakeholder in this company so its not really for me to comment. But, on the other hand, has this CEO really shown himself to be intolerant of gays. I mean, I'm sure he's come across a few, and, I can't judge on this since I don't know the man, but there doesn't seem to actually be any evidence, other than this, that he 'hates' gays, or whatever it is you people like to say about anti-SSM types. Personally, I doubt it, since I find it difficult to imagine that he'd have advanced this far in the company if he'd taken such an openly hostile position. I may be wrong. Again, it's a business decision, and it isn't illegal, so they're well within their rights to do what they have done.
