On second glance, the difference is far from slight. It looks as though a good portion of my post is missing from the first posted version. I have no idea how that happened! If a moderator wants to delete the first version, please feel free.
Mandelstam – I don’t have time to give a detailed reply right now, except to say that I think you and I are still talking past one another. Again, I haven’t condemned anybody and I haven’t addressed the question of whether Yates was legally insane at the time of the murders (note the important distinction from your question of whether I believe she “is” insane). Believe it or not, but I consider that a separate and somewhat irrelevant question. I have confined my posts to the purpose of answering the OP’s question, which is why people in the media and on the street–and yes, even on the SDMB–appear to have shifted the justifications for Yates’s behavior in their own minds from (1) blaming the cruelty of motherhood to (2) blaming a (suddenly!) self evident psychosis. Rilchaim, since this is your thread, can you confirm or deny that this is what I’ve been doing?
I think I ought to reiterate: for the purposes of this thread, I do not care an iota about whatever legal validity the insanity defense may possess, for whites, blacks, men, women, whatever. We are not discussing a matter of law here, but a matter of popular perception. Why has popular perception of Yates’s deed shifted the way it has, and what does it say about our society?
For Mandelstam’s benefit–please note the the emphasis in the OP.
Reilly: yes, that is what you’ve been doing. No, I don’t think Mandelstam knows what you, or I, have been getting at, and I’m not quite sure what s/he’s on about either. I found your explanation quite satisfactory.
I havent’ read the whole thread, I’m only responding to the OP.
I never, ever saw AY’s behavior as anything close to acceptable, understandable, syumpathetic etc, for a sane person. The first minute I heard about it, I was mortified, but within a few minutes after that I was already hearing about her severe postpartum psychological problems and have viewed it in that light since.
Her mental problems have been on the table since the minute the story broke. I never saw her as anything but nuts, although this doesn’t preclude me from understanding how any mother might sometimes want to kill her kids. Which would be a large part of the reason I had myself sterilized. 
stoid
Well, Doghouse, since you’re now taking the (ridiculous) position that my direct response to your own remarks isn’t relevant to the OP, I’ll simply close by quoting you once more in the hopes that you’ll acknowledge the “relevance” of your own words.
“I believe that the whole issue is moral relativism, though the condescending manner in which some folks use this to lower the moral bar for women and minorities is certainly an important side issue.”
And I believe that 1) you don’t understand what “moral relativism” means (though perhaps now you do); 2)that the idea the there is a lowered “moral bar” for women and minorities is preposterous (and I’d challenge you to prove it but for the fact that it would be a hijack), and 3) that the idea of seeing the Yates case–whether before or after the trial as an example of a lowered moral bar at work is deluded since it overlooks the harsh punishment to which Yates has been subjected.
But since you and Rilchiam have sewn up the whole question so ably, I suggest that you log off right now and fire off an e-mail tete-a-tete in which you can agree with each other most cordially unmolested by the prospect of anyone actually debating with you ;).
I’d welcome a debate on the issue outlined on the OP. If I “don’t understand” what moral relativism means in light of this topic, I’d welcome a thoughtful post attempting to demonstrate how I have erred. I haven’t gotten any of that from you, however, Mandelstam.
I’d hate to think that I would have to take the discussion offline in order to have an adult conversation, but maybe you’re right. It’s rather irritating when I take a little time to think about an issue and do a little research, and then I’m expected to “debate” a child who has just run into the room, yammering about one of his pet issues while keeping his fingers stuck into his ears.
An excerpt from my own response to Doghouse’s casting of “moral relativism.”
*"I think the way you’re defining and applying moral relativism here is pretty slippery. For one thing, an insanity defense is not predicated on moral relativism:it’s predicated on the solidly moral notion that its inhumane to punish people who can’t control their acts. This is the morality of the Enlightenment: that it’s uncivilized to harshly punish those who, like children or the insane, aren’t fully in control of themselves.
Now, let’s say, for arguments’ sake, that women are more successful than men in invoking the insanity defense. That does not necessarily boil down to moral relativism. It might mean that some people are more willing to believe that women are subject to insanity; or it might mean that some people feel more compassion for women defendants than for men. But in neither case is their morality relative since in both cases what they’re saying “I don’t want to punish an insane person as I would a sane person.” What would be relative here, rather than morality, is the assumptions the person holds about each gender.
That may seem subtle to you but it’s actually a very important difference since moral relativism is usually used to describe a kind of postmodern attitude of “anything goes:” no fixed sense of what’s right and what’s wrong. What you seem to have in mind, on the other hand, is best described a double standard based on beliefs about and attitudes towards each sex. This can go hand-in-hand with a very strong and strongly fixed sense of morality. Depending on the circumstances,
the double standard sometimes benefits women and sometimes harm them. Ultimately, I’d say, it harms both sexes just because it’s so pernicious."*
Okay, Doghouse. Please tell me exactly how this falls short of the “thoughtful post” you’d hoped for, warranting instead the characterization of childish yammering on a pet subject.
Oh–and just in case you’re thinking of falling back on the irrelevance issue, let me point out that the discussion of how people feel about an insanity defense is entirely relevant to the change in popular perception that occurred before and after the trial. Why? Because what people are now confronting is their feelings about mental illness and its relation guilt/innocence.
What the OP asked us not to discuss is whether Yates was/wasn’t insane or responsible–something which I don’t discuss at all.
Most important of all, my comments are directly replying to your own post on the matter!