Direct anecdote:
A couple of years ago, I worked with a large team and there was a gay man on the team who was constantly yapping on about gay this and gay that, almost like he was looking for disapproval among the ranks. He then decided to do a legal union with his boyfriend and invited everyone. Those who did not attend were berated, verbally accused of this and that. I counseled everyone to simply ignore him and not take the bait, which ended up being sound judgement, because he took his leave shortly thereafter. I never engaged in ad-hominem attacks or retaliated against this man. I just refused to play his childish game of attacking people for some imagined reasons.
Linus, Theo, and other large project leaders deal with actual idiots all the time. Serial idiots. Sometimes in the real world you have to step on toes to get someone's attention. It can often be done in "nicer" ways, but sometimes you have to "nuke them from orbit" just to be sure.
Recently, my British uncle told me of a story about a woman in England who went apoplectic about a new tissue range having the marketing slogan "man-sized" tissues. Who cares? It's marketing. The company actually caved to please this woman. I would not have done so. My tissues, my slogan. Don't buy them if you're offended.