The atheist movement, at that point, had spent a very long time flogging basically all religions for being overly tolerant of sexual misconduct by their leaders, and had been publicly arguing that atheists are morally superior precisely because they aren't as tolerant of things like sexual misconduct.

To then, after the movement's own leaders started getting outed for engaging in the same kinds of behavior, take an about-face on that position and say, "Whoops, guess we didn't care about morality after all," would have been many things. But, just speaking from a purely strategic perspective, since that's what I think you're trying to do, it would undoubtedly have been a spectacular own goal.