Stating that defending that pronouns should be gendered is a fireable offense is more than just ridiculous political correctness, it's criminalizing opinion. It's the Holy Inquisition.
There should be a law that concerns the confusion of the two.
It is a shame that people have to preface legitimate comparisons to historic events with these sort of disclaimers.
I'm rather amazed to see people rushing to defend sexism. Please tell me: what's so great about sexism? Why is it so wrong to fight it? Because I really don't get it.
This is a witch hunt, plain and simple. I'm amazed that people don't understand that this doesn't help the fight against sexism, at all...
It seems a small thing to fire someone over, but if gender equality and using gender neutral pronouns are important parts of their company policy, then someone actively resisting company policy and reverting the work of people who improved the product according to company policy, would be pretty serious.
Also note that a female developer was ready to quit the community over Ben's behaviour. Ben directly contributed to a hostile atmosphere where an often excluded minority is likely to feel more excluded. That is definitely serious.
You consider it a witch hunt because you don't care about gender neutral pronouns. Probably because you haven't felt subtly excluded all your life by gendered pronouns referring to other people. Fighting that exclusion is an important part of the fight against sexism.