Considering the submission's score and age, it's far lower than it should be.[1] But I bet that's due to user flags, not moderator action. The moderators here are fine with controversial subjects being discussed. And if they sink an article off the front page, they typically say so (and why). Users, on the other hand... well some of them use flag as downvote.
Maybe the domain is flagged? Or the user who submitted it?
This is really weird. The title isn't inflammatory at all, and the article is pretty objective. The original article was way more controversial (see by the number of flamewars in the comments) and yet didn't get flagged off the front page.