1. Do you have a definition of what does count as disgrace?
2. If you assume there is a desecration of God’s name and it’s possible to criticize without disgrace, a. is it permitted to disgrace, since both can be done? b. if there is a dispute about the very existence of the desecration of God’s name, shouldn’t you be stringent because of a Torah-level doubt stringently?

1. No.
2. a. There is no need to do both, especially when sharp criticism is necessary. b. Indeed.

1. If there is no definition, on what basis do you say that sarcasm is not disgrace? At least on account of 2b—that is, because of the rule that in a Torah-level doubt one is stringent.
2. I’d be glad for a reason why one should not do both, in a case where the disgrace is unnecessary.

1. Does every concept, in your view, have a definition? Do you not use concepts for which you have no definition? Maybe you imagine that you do, but the answer is no. All our basic concepts lack a conceptual definition, and still we use them. There is common sense (for whoever has it), and one has to use it.
Let me ask you: how is it that you write to me here with such sarcasm? Is there no disgrace here? (Of a person, not a Torah scholar.) And what about the “holy ones” of the LGBT community? Didn’t you disgrace them by that? I think not, and what you wrote is perfectly fine (from that standpoint), but according to your view you need to provide a definition. Or is it only others who have to do that?…
By the way, Nachmanides writes about the Baal HaMaor, “ancient words from the mouth of a young elder.” Did he disgrace him by that? No. He criticized him sarcastically. That’s all. And there are many more such cases.
2. One should not do both because there is no obligation to honor Torah scholars of that sort. Moreover, as I wrote, the disgrace is part of the criticism, to show that these are not Torah scholars and that there is no obligation to honor them. By the way, those “Torah scholars” disgrace others with no restraint and without justification either. But that is of course whataboutism.
All right, it seems to me we’ve exhausted this.

[By the way, it turns out that Nachmanides’ expression is taken from the language of a midrash. I don’t know what sin the author of HaMaor committed that some of the sharpest polemical language in the literature was directed at him by the Raavad (who also sparred with him back and forth over the policy of his barbed polemics) and by Nachmanides. And regarding Nachmanides’ own expressions, it should be noted that Nachmanides retracted them in the second introduction and explained that the young men had kindled the fire of his anger, etc.]

The author of HaMaor “sinned” In this regard that at age 19 he disagreed with the Rif.

From that standpoint I’ve always had a strange sympathy for him. Someone rises up to rebel against authority (which, sadly, all my life I’ve never managed to understand on what basis the Rif acquired such authority), and immediately the hammers of the group rushed to cut off his head. My heart tells me there is some significant programmatic innovation in the author of HaMaor’s words, and that is why each man girded his sword, but I’m not enough of an expert to grasp the matter.

By the way, regarding age 19, objections have been raised as to whether that poem (“And do not say his years are few and diminished, for he lacks but a year of twenty”) was really written for the work HaMaor. There is no hint in that poem to the core of the book, namely that it is objections to the Rif, whereas the introduction focuses on that. Unlike, for example, Nachmanides’ similar poem in the introduction to his rulings on Bekhorot, which explicitly mentions the book’s content: “For the chief of magicians has already made every delicacy… and this is his envoy who comes in his place.” Meaning: the great master has already done almost everything, and now this one (I, Nachmanides) is his agent who comes in his stead and in his way to complete the little that he left lacking.

The Rif did not have any special “authority”; he was simply regarded as the leading sage of the generation, and therefore people did not disagree with him—just as today an average religious person would not disagree with the Shulchan Arukh, and not even with Rabbi Ovadia, (at most he’ll say that he rules like Rabbi Eliyahu).
And just as today rabbis would not like it if some young person disagreed with the rabbis mentioned above (even if he had serious arguments), so too then they didn’t like it. By the way, there is some logic to the claim that denies the privilege of disagreeing with sages, because if he were here he would presumably answer the arguments and remain in his position.

Smuggler and Menachem, sorry in advance for cutting off the interesting historical discussion about the author of Baal HaMaor, the Rif, and Nachmanides.

I simply didn’t understand the Rabbi’s explanation.
a. Sarcasm toward sinners, who are called an abomination, like the holy LGBT community, regarding whom and the like the Torah wrote “there shall not be a sacred prostitute”—that is, a prostitute, for anyone who doesn’t know—is a commandment, because there is a commandment of “you shall eradicate the evil from your midst.” (To the Rabbi, at least here in the current question I did not write sarcastically, and even when I did write that way, I used his style, in the sense of “according to your reasoning.”)
b. The very fact that there is a prohibition on disgracing Torah scholars means there must be a definition, and the definition is: go out and see—what is commonly said about a person whom people are not accustomed to honor, and what is commonly not said about Torah scholars; and sarcasm, it seems to me, is not accepted.
c. When they go after someone, they usually do not claim that he is a Torah scholar, only that he appears to be one. It does not seem to me that Rabbi Chaim and Rabbi Gershon are not considered Torah scholars even according to your view. According to their view, after all, you are beyond the pale and ought to be lowered into a pit and not brought up, so presumably if they related to you they would not weigh the issue of disgracing a Torah scholar, but rather the issue of disgracing and ruining the treasury of wisdom if they leave you in the pit (of course according to Maimonides’ thirteen principles).
d. If we assume, in your opinion, that they caused a local desecration of God’s name, the desecration was not done intentionally; at most they were inadvertent sinners, or lacking recognition of reality. Have they already ceased being Torah scholars?!
A quote from your words above: “The disgrace is part of the criticism, to show that these are not Torah scholars and that there is no obligation to honor them.”

Regarding the age, it’s interesting that the poem is being challenged. Are there other claims against attributing the poem to him (aside from the claim that it doesn’t speak to the content of the book)?

In section c you sent the draft without editing.

Menachem, regarding the challenge, I don’t know.

Amazing—at long last I have halakhic justification for mocking Haim K. the cannabis device certifier for Passover and for the whole year.

To Tom,
You haven’t been seen on the site for a long time.
I noticed that in your words about the LGBT community, the claim slipped in that they are called an “abomination.”
You are surely relying on the verse that says “it is an abomination” about these acts.
But one would expect a yeshiva student like you (as you testified in this place) to know how to read what is written.
“It is an abomination” — the act is an abomination; they themselves are not called an abomination. The object—yes; the person—no.
The Torah was very careful not to call a person an abomination, only his deeds.
In a few isolated places, the Torah did decide to call the person himself an “abomination”—that is, the person.
One of them is someone who cheats with weights.
Check yourself and your neighborhood: whoever you discover is deceitful—him, indeed, you may call an abomination in the name of the Torah.
With blessings,
From me, “setting ignorant religious folks straight on their mistakes.”
(Do not ask that in this username I was under a different name, because I cleave to the ways of my Creator: one time I reveal myself in one manner and another time in another manner.)

By the way, look in the prophets: there the “abominations” are deceitful, untrustworthy people. Not secular people, not homosexuals—people who are bad in interpersonal matters. “There are six things the Lord hates, and seven that are an abomination to His heart”; search in Proverbs about whom this is said, and many more such examples in the prophets.
These are things I have not seen to be any less common among Haredim.

* Typo correction:
Instead of “someone who wants weights,”
read: “someone who cheats with weights.”