I'm kind of "yes and no" all over this post. At least in part because it seems to me that the position of putting concern for the Bechdel test secondary to telling a good story or a fun adventure involves a particular conscious choice as to what "a good story" or "a fun adventure" entails. I am not by any means opposed to making that choice - there are some excellent books that are nowhere near passing the Bechdel test, from The Name of the Rose to the Aubrey/Maturin I'm in the middle of right now - given it being a conscious choice, and one for which there's a reason. I am somewhat leery of positions that do not consider it to begin with.
Personally, when I say "a good story," I'm looking at whether something fits naturally. Tough Eurasian Street Girl Gang Member With A Heart Of Gold would never fit into
Name of the Rose for example unless one decides to chuck historical accuracy and have the Doctor drop her off.
Now, if the Bechdel Test, or any other "Test" does fit, and can be used to add to the story, then I personally feel that ignoring it would be missing an opportunity to write something amazing instead of just something good. God knows, there's enough of people doing the Same Old Thing and ignoring that half of the population that can provide wonderful characters.
Well, "yes and no" all over the place is probably good, because if we totally agreed on something for an extended period of time, that there would likely be End Times stuff, like Zombie Antimatter Marsupial Cyborgs. 
My concern is not that so much as "do I want to give the impression that I am explicitly excluding some of my potential readership ?" And if so - given the unlikelihood of any one book appealing to all potential readers - which ones do i care about ?
Personally, I don't mind excluding readers who *expect*, who feel that I have some obligation to write to their cause or worldview. I suspect that those readers will bring so much baggage to the story they wouldn't have any fun anyway... and I don't like the presumption of those readers/bloggers who feel they have some sort of moral authority to school any artist on what priorities they should be supporting. Those people who can't get a glass of water without filtering the experience through some sort of "Well, as a supporter of XYZ, I find that this drink of water doesn't speak to the cause of XYZ..." are likety not going to find something to dislike anyway.
But the readers who would say "Hey! This clown actually came up with some strong, developed female characters!" or "Hey! There's no love triangle or boy talk!" without feeling that I "owed it to them"? Well, I'll be thrilled if I dish up something up that they like. That's who I'm looking to please. That, and people who maybe want to see steampunk and hard science get slippity together.
Some readers will always be excluded. People who want magic space pandas will be pretty much out of luck with me. As will be readers who want me to specifically write something "relevant" to some Current Awful Plight Somewhere In The Real World. Same with those who want to read about a Manly Race Car Driving Detective Guy. Can't please everyone, so I'm going with what pleases me, hopefully with some measure of skill, and put it where people with similar tastes will trip over it. Whether that actually is enough readers to allow me to purchase a grape at the next feast is something that remains to be seen. Hell, I might be so awful people'll establish a fund to pay me not to write. Kind of like what should be done with Uwe Boll...
That depends how you scale politics, I reckon. I mean, leaving out any suggestion of which way Harry would vote in a Presidential election is one thing, but Harry does have a pretty clearly defined set of things he considers good and stands up for, and things he opposes, and I don't particularly see how being pro-free-will, for example, isn't a political position. I'm not seeing how a story can not be political in the second sense.
And when you say that, that gives me the strong impression of there being a bunch of axioms, or social issues, call them what you will, that you have given some thought to, in order to decide they don't apply to your setting. I'm not quite seeing how that fits with your expressed position above of not being socially conscious.
If you parse it down enough, anything is on some level "political." A character picks an apple, and tells their friend "The tree's right there, go pick your own damn apple. I'm tired and hungry, and I'm not climbing back up there" will be at some point processed as a Political Statement by someone. They might think it a Good Statement, or an Evil Statement that they think I'm making. Dependent on what they're really looking to find, generally.
Basic conflicts, like "I got this, and you want it" are the eternal genetic base-stock of politics, after all.
Personally, when I say "I'm trying to avoid politics," I'm avoiding any intentional ties to Current Events in the socio-political scene.
And I know that there are some people who will see a conflict between Homesteads and the Towns as a "Left Wing" or "Right Wing" "Statement,"that they imagine is a reference to some current upheaval somewhere in the world. "I got this, you want it" is a theme where both sides claim the moral high ground, after all. There are always people looking for things they can feel validates their worldview, others look for things they can claim threatens it. That's unavoidable, because it's generated by their own mental filters. So I do take an effort to avoid anything someone will say "Oh, this
obviously a reference to The American Revolution/The Civil War/The Intifada/War On Terror"... at least without them having to work to invent an imaginary connection.
If a writer *wants* to do something that's a reference to such issues, they've every right to do so, that's just something I have no intention of doing... For me, personally, socio-political "fan service" (See
Avatar: Dances With Space Marines) detracts from a story. It becomes a wink at the camera which, for me anyway, which breaks immersion and gets in the way of enjoying the experience, and has the potential of dating your story in a bad way. It's something that is frequently thrown in by Hollywood types who want to generate cheap buzz and congratulate themselves on their own cleverness at taking their sword and spaceship story and "making it
relevant", instead of focusing their efforts on better character development, or tighter, crisper writing.
(I'm not saying that socio-political commentary ruins a story, but that unless it's the writer's main goal, it's no substitute for quality story elements.)
