Squeers,
Yeah, I'll be going back to work shortly, to earn money and hand it over to someone else.

And a feminist somewhere will want their slice of my wages.

But I've seen through too much feminist hype to now believe anything they say.

As this comments thread has progressed, it has come to be in danger of becoming a hijacked discussion. It is awkward to make this observation, because so much within the article itself has been written without recognition of the circumstances which engendered the tweetstorm and associated publicity upon which this and like MSM articles have piggybacked, as a basis.

Jennifer Wilson, in the 10 January blog post that elicited MTR's lawyers' letter of demand and associated threat of defamation action by MTR, opened quite clearly with the statement:

"Like other commentators, Hills focuses on
Tankard Reist’s pro life feminism. There’s
been a lot of twitter chatter over the last
few days about who is and isn’t a feminist,
and there’s plenty of women who don’t believe
that anyone who is anti abortion can also be
a feminist.

That’s not the argument I’m going to have here,
because for me what is far more important than
whether or not Tankard Reist is a feminist
(whatever that word means, very little I sometimes
fear) are her religious beliefs, and the way in
which they determine her beliefs about human sexuality.

Tankard Reist is a Baptist. ...."

The initial claim as to MTR being a Baptist (one subsequently refuted in favour of a biographical description by Miranda Devine of MTR as having been "brought up Christian, attending Uniting Church services as a child in Mildura", and of MTR currently "[having] no denominational affiliation") was one based upon reasonable inferences able to be drawn from a number of online source documents, including a Wikipedia entry, containing background information on MTR.

One of the things that lent impetus to the Twitter hashtag conversation '#MTRsues', after the initial indignation at MTR taking resort to defamation action against Jennifer Wilson, was the 'clean up' of erstwhile publicly available information that would have, if it remained up on the web, supported Wilson's inferences, that started to take place before peoples' very eyes!

It seems few believed this 'clean up' was just coincidental, but was more believably at MTR's behest.

There are easier ways to defeat feminists like Tankard Reist. Just ask them about personal responsibility then watch them run.

Forrest Gumpp,
I sympathise that the discussion hasn't focused on the issue as you see it, and I can see that the issue of MTR's grounds for defamation are dubious; indeed contentious at best and possibly even fraudulent based on your accusation of a "clean-up"; that is, a tampering with the evidence ex post facto. One wonders if MTR has a case, or if it might not backfire?
Nevertheless, I think "hijacked discussion" is a bit strong, at least apropos thoughtful discussion that responded directly to the headline, "Why the need for consensus?" as well as the small print. I responded directly to this and tried to show the logical absurdity of the question. I'm not particularly interested in the spat between the ladies, nor fully up to speed on it apart from your excellent debriefing--though I certainly see the issues as of great moment, both to JW and freedom of speech generally. Were I better versed on the controversy (and more interested), as you are, I might have added to my criticism of logical inconsistency that the premises were also based rhetorically on JW's "established" transgressions, and factional feminism, when as you say no evidence was presented--in fact either ignorance or the evidence was implicitly excised post hoc. I am interested in feminism and political lobbying, and from what I could gather neither of these is being prosecuted by either party with any rigour. What we have is anonymous labels and hobby horses; populism; passionate feelings and a dearth of theoretical or even practical consideration.
It does seem then that I, for one, digressed from the mundane yet momentous issues of honesty and underhandedness you allude to within the dispute, into more thoughtful asides. I have a tendency to do that on OLO.
The banal and more important question then would seem to be: "has anyone saved the undoctored online material on MTR?"

Correction, it should have read, "in fact either ignorance prevailed or the evidence was implicitly excised post hoc".

A correction to my post of Thursday 16 February 2012 at 10:23:47 AM. The second link posted should have been: http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=13033#226493

@Squeers

I had none of your posts in mind in mentioning the prospect of thread hijack. What I had in mind were attempts to categorize this controversy as one related to anti-discrimination laws and/or as a catfight between people labeled 'feminists'. Much as MTR might rejoice to see that happen, it was not the basis of the tweetstorm that created the publicity upon which some of what might be perceived as a 'feminist' commentariat have poled in pursuit of their own interests.

Jennifer Wilson's penultimate paragraph in her 10 January 2012 blog post was:

"I don’t care if Melinda Tankard Reist is
defined as a feminist or not. She is anti
abortion. She is deceptive and duplicitous
about her religious beliefs and she does not
declare herself. When asked why not, she
counters that people would not hear her message
if her religious beliefs became a distracting
focus. She does not believe in any public
expression of female sexuality, in other words
she is repressive and dehumanizes women."

As I think her lawyers' second letter strove to emphasise, the claim that MTR considers most damaging to her ambitions is that as to her being 'deceptive and duplicitous about her religious beliefs'.

The really huge revelation for me that arose out of the '#MTRsues' Twitter hashtag conversation was that of MTR's having been for 12 years former Senator Brian Harradine's office staff member and bio-ethics advisor. That, to me, indicated MTR as having synchronous viewpoint to that of the Vatican in this area! I can well imagine that in pitching to an audience of nominally multi-denominational character, and a wider conservative female audience whether Christian or agnostic, that MTR would not want to be seen as the committed facilitator of the implementation of Vatican policy upon the whole community that she has been.

Such might not advance an envisaged parliamentary career.