well from my knowledge, they are defending it because shills spread disinfo and people who don't even know how to read Aramaic, or even hebrew, are saying something based on those disinfo stuff.
People don't get the context of it all, that it is an ancient religious lawyering book that discusses whether something is a sin or not, or whether someone is defined a "virgin" or whatever, based on old testament laws.
Sure it has some primitive definitions etc, but it is only religious law definitions. If you say something isn't a religious sin, it doesn't mean that you are promoting it, as it can be a civil sin.
At the end of the day, those who follow blindly organized religion, or 2000 year old texts, are sheep. Also all religions have a good core, the problem is that the "organized" part, corrupted it.
To my knowledge, most jews, at least the secular ones, don't follow the talmud and they don't even know what it says. Even some religious jews take it with a grain of salt. The ultra religious sheep do follow it, but they are not a majority.
On the other hand, the sjw "reform" "jews" on the other hand reject both talmud and the torah. Instead creating a "progressive new judaism".