High school teacher. TLDR a coworker recently lost her husband. He was in his early 50s and had an "extremely aggressive cancer". Months within diagnosis, he was dead.
Caught her completely off guard, etc etc etc, nothing to do, "ultra-fast spreading cancer," "he was in perfect health before," etc etc etc.
So anyway, funeral has just concluded last week-end, and she's telling her sob stories in the teacher lounge.
I turn around and ask:
"Did he get vaccinated against Covid?"
She replies right away: "Yes, he had all his doses, plus the boosters..."
Then... I smirk. Not smile, just a tiny, tiny smile on the bottom of my right lip. In my mind, I thought "mystery solved."
So anyway, she... I don't know, she completely flips out, starts screaming, "why are you asking me this, what is your problem" typical pre-menopause hysteria, etc.
Well apparently she filed a complaint with HR against me, and now I have to meet HR to discuss "something." Union rep will be with me LOL okay.
Did I really go too far? I mean, I just asked ONE question...
To me, the bigger concern is what can reasonably be construed as gloating over the death of a coworker's husband. Whether you're pro-vaccine BS or not, it's really not something that should happen in a workplace.
I'll address what I think is the separate issue that you're focusing on: I agree, leftists don't self-censor whereas non-leftists do (but shouldn't be pressured to). However fair or unfair you think that is, the consequences for these groups speaking their minds are completely different.
Has OP meaningfully changed anything by standing up for his beliefs in this manner? No, he may have thrown his career away. With some perseverance and cleverness, could he have affected school policy to be slightly less woke in some way? Probably. Wouldn't that have been better?
It's about picking your battles, not doing nothing.