For some reason, it reminds me of the people saying "But The Last Airbender (and/or Prince of Persia) is a shitty movie anyway, why complain about the racebending?"

Why, of all things, would a work being bad protect it? You'd think people who thought the movie was bad for other reasons would just ignore the activist critiques.

Saying "but they've been doing tasteless jokes all along!" doesn't protect Penny Arcade either. There's a difference between "tasteless joke" and "rape joke you bend over backwards to defend while shitting on anyone who complains and half-assedly trying to make it look like you still care about women gamers."