@Wrenching_Spanners : you may or may not be aware that, over the past decade or so, the board has lost a number of formerly-active members, who had interesting perspectives, and who contributed greatly to this being a vibrant and diverse place for discussion.
Those people left, not because they were banned, but because they were fed up with the behavior of other posters, who were argumentative, bullying, harassing, and trolling. In many cases, the now-departed board members were women, LGBT+, or members of other frequently marginalized groups.
My understanding is that, over time, the board leadership has chosen to tighten their moderation of unruly and abusive posters, due, in no small part, to these ongoing losses of once-active members, which had resulted from what was perceived, by many, as a toxic board culture.
It is true that some of the board’s strongly conservative members have been the ones who have been most loudly opposed to the mods’ approaches and decisions, but it also seems, at least to me, that they have also been the ones most willing to regularly break the board’s rules, and bring themselves under mod scrutiny – not because they are in the minority here in their politics and philosophies (which they might be), but because they choose to engage in negative disruption, bullying of other posters, and otherwise being a nuisance. And, of course, this has, in many cases, like this one, led to their banning.