I would agree with you. They have no business following a political agenda at all.
I'm very familiar with the incident you describe. It was the subject of several FR threads.
They published the list, they received a substantial number of complaints (I complained, I'm sure you and LL did too), they removed the sites and adopted a postition that they would take no position on the 2nd ammendment or gun control.
In addition, they pulled the entire anti-government section (that's why you need to look at an archived site to see them), which was also none of their business. This took about 6 weeks.
I'd suggest that that's the proper response. If they take a position on gun control again they'll hear from me again. But I think rubbing their face in a mistake they corrected (or as LL does, slandering them thread to thread) is just plain stupid.
And the hate sites I see on their web site are just that, hate sites.
I would agree that all of the sites currently listed are appropriate.