In my view the core of the "drama" is about whether quoting an unpolitical statement of a person endorses the person as a whole, including their political views.

The maintainer who originally responded to the github issue clearly thinks that it does not. The reporter and Twitter mob think that it does

Whether we disagree with his political views (I hope so) and how political a project like neovim is would be questions to answer once agreement on the first question is reached