While I don't know about this case, a common problem with people arguing right/wrong and legal/illegal is that one side picks right/wrong and the other picks le

While I don't know about this case, a common problem with people arguing right/wrong and legal/illegal is that one side picks right/wrong and the other picks legal/illegal and they talk past each other. If the law happens to agree with somebody's opinion, they'll use that to justify that they're "right" and if it doesn't, they'll use some higher moral standard and disregard the law. Sometimes it's obvious which the sensible choice to make is. If you're arguing whether the GPL allows linking to a proprietary library or not, then it's the law that's more important. But if you're arguing if sex with children is OK then it's some higher moral standard that's important and appeals to the law are essentially appeals to popular opinion as support of some moral standard. Luckily, people usually agree on what the law means, so they just have to make sure they're arguing about the same point that their opponent is actually making.