I just chuckle when I hear Amanda's defenders crying "free speech!" Sure, she has the right to speak her mind. And others have the right to react to it.

Your “right to react” does not include making threats of violence, rape and death.

Amanda, I fully support your and Melissa’s resignations. Not only do you have no obligation to martyr yourselves for the cause of the Democratic party (especially considering that few Democratic candidates or politicians take moral stands that subject them to such targeted attacks—witness Edwards’ tepid defence of you two), what you were subjected to is beyond what anyone should have to face to keep a job.

And thank you, and Salon, for this recap of the past week’s events from your perspective, which has been totally absent from mainstream media coverage until now.

What some commenters here don’t realise (or perhaps don’t care) is that the threatening actions against you and Melissa went beyond mere written words. Melissa reported that at least one stranger drove up to her home and attempted to beat down her front door with his fists. (He fled as she moved to call the police.) She describes her mother as frantic with worry over her safety—a sentiment I can fully understand, being a mother myself.

The likes of Donohue, Malkin, Coulter, Savage, Limbaugh and other Right-Wing windbags know fully well that their inflammatory rhetoric incites actions in the less mentally stable among their followers. They don’t care, nor do the mainstream media which irresponsibly supply them with a microphone and platform. Many of their hate-mongering actions, like Malkin’s publishing of the phone numbers of student peace activists a while back, would land them in jail where I now live in Ireland.

Moreover, Bill Donohue would be laughed out of the pub were he to approach the Irish media with his lunatic ravings. No way would he be taken seriously in Catholic Ireland.

The quality of education in America’s public schools has declined to the point that many Americans are incapable of logical thinking, unable to identify fallacies of association, ad hominem and straw man attacks, half truths, etc. (Blame advertisers for some of this.) Likewise, few Americans truly understand the concepts of freedom of expression and religion. Just as few know the history and religious beliefs of the nation’s founders.

What is more, the Right seems terminally "comedially-challenged." Irony, satire, and parody are totally lost on them.

That right-wing thugs forced two feminist women to resign for what amounts to a freedom of expression issue is real cause for concern for anyone interested in prolonging the political experiment known as the American republic.

Your faith isn't sacred to the rest of us. Some brands of it are misogynistic, homophobic, and hypocritical. I don't think anyone needs to apologize for meeting that hatred with some bile of her own.

Perhaps, instead of screaming that Christianity is off-limits just because you believe it to be true, you should consider why Marcotte's comments offended you so much. Why does the coupling of sex and religious figures like Mary and Jesus freak you out? Perhaps because some forms of Christianity have been about controlling sexuality (especially women's sexuality) for thousands of years? Perhaps because some forms of Christianity are all about making sex dirty and shameful?

If you're willing to stop offending us by trying to control our bodies, denying teenagers access to correct information about birth control, deeming birth control beyond the pale, denying women leadership roles, and playing the ridiculous role of persecuted victim that you have been milking for thousands of years (yes, you're victims because the rest of us don't particularly want to say "Merry Christmas" instead of "Happy Holidays")...then maybe we can talk about ceasing to offend you by mentioning birth control and the Blessed Virgin Mary in the same sentence.

At least we're not trying to impose our beliefs onto you. That is much more offensive than anything Marcotte has written.

The accuser is white, so there has not been a peep out of all those liberal, racist professors.

One can try to untie the many knots, re feminism, liberalism, religion, anti-religion, free speech, and so on, but to me the core is people are allowed to react strongly to the quote about the holy ghost's sticky semen, just as feminists can go nuts over cracks about Nancy or Hillary's tits, and blacks can take strong umbrage at racial slurs. What's somewhat ironic here is that the author of the H.G. statements probably thought it was so, so clever...actually, it was mechanical, so unfunny.

Responding to them as Jesus the Christ would.

Yep, it's true. I've driven many a poster on both left and right blogs to frothing insanity simply by refusing to descend to their level. Answer the most foul language and abusive posts with calm, level headed logic and a polite tone and it just drives most of them completely around the bend. They will go to any lengths to get you to respond to them in the manner in which they attack you and when you don't it frustrates them to madness.

The sort of people who use personal insults, foul language and abuse have no other arrows in their quiver. By refusing to play their game you leave them utterly defenseless and you can skewer them with polite wit, facts and logic at your leisure.

Personally I like it when my opponent descends to abuse and foul language, it says far more about them than it does me and I know the lurkers (about nine to one over posters) get the point when I don't respond in kind.

I remember watching an old black and white western movie when I was a kid, lo these many years ago. The protagonist in the movie was an eastern educated dandy and he got challenged to a shootout by a tough cowboy. The dandy chose to have a battle of words with the cowboy rather than a battle of guns. The cowboy sputtered and fumed and called the dandy many nasty things (for the day anyway). After the cowboy got done, the dandy proceeded to skewer him verbally without ever using any kind of foul language at all.

That movie made quite an impression on me and I have since tried to act in the way the dandy in the movie acted. I've never been sorry for my decision.

Oh, by the way, I'm what many would call a radical atheist and yet I find the message of Jesus the Christ to return love for hate to be a very powerful tool.