I think ET is fine as it is. People who join in mostly get it and mostly fit in just fine. On the very rare occasions where people are being deliberately offensive, they're usually troll rated into oblivion fairly quickly.

Controversial subjects will always be controversial, but so far hardly any of the contributors to that thread seem to have had much to say elsewhere on the site. Which suggest they're more interested in the subject than the site, and once the interest dies down they may well find that somewhere else is more amenable to discussing that particular issue.