In general I agree that this issue doesn't appear to be legitimate. However, Progressives are typically driven by wanting to correct injustices and to be the best they can be. That makes us vulnerable to manipulation in the same way that fear and resentment about a fictional "golden age" make conservatives vulnerable to manipulation.
When you have allegations of a violation of a social value that is significant to a progressive mindset (I.E. respect for LGBT people or respect for women in Franken's case), it will certainly set off the reaction of those people who are most strongly affected by the violations. There is always a possibility of over reaction as a result. Franken, likely got a bad deal, but it wasn't "one picture", it was a series of accusations (true or not) that were not able to be ignored.
The difference between Progressives and Conservatives on these issues is that Conservatives appear to care most about power and winning over ethical behavior, and Progressives care about ethics more than political victory.
Our homophobes are not better than their homophobes (and I am not saying Reid is a homophobe). Progressives want ALL homophobia to be eliminated and we start by looking inward (for better or worse).
Like I said. I do not believe that Reid is homophobic or that she has negative ideas about LGBT people. She had blog posts years ago, that she acknowledged, criticizing Charlie Christ, which disparaged him using comparisons to homosexuality.
I consider myself a decent person and a progressive, but I was taught growing up, that you shouldn't throw or run like a girl, that when something was "gay", that meant is was bad. While I have tried not to use those phrases as disparagement for many many years, they are in there (in my psyche). I remember when I was 19 and my sister had a very good friend who is gay and she brought him home on vacation (he was from out of the country) and I said something like, "that was so gay" not describing him but something I though was a bad situation. My sister pointed that out to me, especially because I really liked my sister's friend, he is an awesome guy, and here I was using the core of his sexuality to denote something bad or unacceptable. The same way when some people want to disparage a man, they call him a "cocksucker" or we call people "retarded", when they have made a decision or done something that we did not find to be intelligent or appropriate. Again, as progressives we seek to eliminate those ideas from our lexicon and our attitudes, and there are those who sincerely (because they have been so affected by the issue) want to have little tolerance for those uses of language. Then there are those who seek to exploit the issue for political gain.
Ultimately we have to balance our progressive identity with critical thinking and always with skepticism for attacks coming from right wingers and other people seeking to manipulate us. This certainly requires that we do not knee jerk and call for people being fired, but we certainly want to look into a situation.
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