Slightly related question: why do people love Python so much? Or, any dynamically typed language? There's almost nothing that has frustrated me more in a professional setting than trying to figure out what some dynamically typed code is doing and ensuring I don't break anything by making changes.
Honestly I guess it's just a difference in taste/demenour.
My background was originally in C# then Java (plus JavaScript on the side, since most of us have to do that), and when I first came to Python I found it to be a lovely language and a breath of fresh air.
I guess I would say to me it feels neat and tidy, thoughful about interface design, and gives me a sense of quality. I get a similar feeling from Clojure (perhaps even more so).
I don't find static typing as valuable as you do, and additionally I find the cost in verbosity and in time wasted solving type-checking puzzles quite painful. Perhaps if I'd spent more time with one of the more sophisticated type systems I'd feel differently (Java and C# are quite limited here), but not convinced enough to try.
what does this mean?
Here are two ways of looking at it:
a. People in the USA* have massive fights about things that no-else cares about, and software projects put up a statement about those. This is off-putting to everyone else.
b. The USA is ahead of the curve on some political movements, and the article is expressing conservatism/anti-conservatism/a reaction towards being expected to act according to morals that aren't majority accepted in their country yet.
To decide for each particular movement whether it's (a) the wave of the future or (b) a passing fad? Who can say? You are supposedly an autonomous moral being, so use your own judgement.
*This is true of any place and any people, but everyone else has to put up with the USA's quirks because rich influential explosives. You could substitute Twitter for the USA here. Hey, who gave Twitter all those stealth bombers?