It's as political as banning goofing off at work. You aren't hired to spend the working day debating politics with your co workers, just like you aren't hired to blow off the day playing Halo in the back room with your coworkers. You are hired to do the tasks described in your job and that alone.

this “just do your job” talk only comes out when we’re talking about activism. the rest of the time y’all are saying “we’re a family of co-owners trying to change the world”

I hire a whole person who, along with the company itself, exists in society and is not an automaton judged only by how many widgets are produced.

Is banning discussion of religion in the workplace a political/religious stance?

Or is it just an attempt to be decent and get people to do the thing they were hired to do, which is to make their investors more fucking money? As a shareholder in several tech companies, I don't like the idea of people having discussions like these on my dime. How many bugs that were never fixed with Youtube Music, for example, could have been fixed if there weren't shit heads sitting around having flame wars on my fucking dime?

> Is banning discussion of religion in the workplace a political/religious stance?

(Please forgive any flawed logic below - I assure you it's an oversight. I'm posting this in good faith.)

I'd say yes, but basically in the same way Coinbase's band on political speech in the office is a stance.

Consider religious people whose theology holds that they should attempt to convert everybody in their circles, even their professional circles.

It seems to me that banning that is tantamount to saying either (a) their theology is wrong, or (b) it's not wrong but the employer is resisting it regardless, or (c) the business has no place for employees holding those beliefs.

It’s actually (d) they can do that just not in the office or during working hours.

Have they banned the discussion of certain topics entirely? Or have they just said that they don't want the company as an entity to get involved with these topics?

There's a difference between saying "we don't think it's appropriate for us to take an official stance on X, but feel free to discuss X on your lunch breaks like you would any other topic" and "thou shalt not mention X in any context while an employee of this company"