Individuals do have more freedom to discriminate and show “social intolerance”, but that obviously doesn’t extend to punching people they disagree with. Or violent responses in general.
I’m not morally obligated to debate someone arguing in favor of genocide, for instance. Is it legally assault to punch them, sure. Would I want the government to come in and boot stomp them, probably not. Is punching them morally wrong, nope.
The morals of your actions are for you to decide. It’s your conscience. However, if you punched someone over what they said they would be perfectly justified both in defending themselves against your aggression and in punching you right back. At that point you would have no objective rational argument that their defense or retribution was wrong which would not similarly condemn your own actions. You’re the one who chose to escalate to violence, not them.