I will assume this is an honest un-loaded question, but would be most comfortable giving an honest answer in a throwaway. First, I think Connery was pretty cle

I will assume this is an honest un-loaded question, but would be most comfortable giving an honest answer in a throwaway. First, I think Connery was pretty clearly saying that slapping a woman isn't always abuse, not saying that it is abuse and abuse is okay. Besides being literally false if narrowly interpreted, this violates the HN guideline, "Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize." Second, because it's an attempt to side-load a hot-button topic into a non-political thread, and HN frowns on that. (Note that the hot-button topic is "Were Connery's comments acceptable", which was contentious at the time he made them and still is today; it is not, as OP's phrasing might suggest, "Is spousal abuse acceptable" which almost no one agrees with) Third, discussion of this Connery interview has been ubiquitous online today (it has been mentioned in every article, Reddit thread, FB post, etc about Sean Connery I have seen today) and I suspect lot of people come to HN to get away with that. Fourth, there is indeed a long, long tradition of people who dislike a celebrity using the occasion of their death to launch one last attack on them, and other people who liked the celebrity indignantly complaining that that's a bad thing to do.