Is there something wrong with me because I don’t accept being an artist as a defence for child molesting? Not even if it’s an Academy Award winning artist!

I’m apparently out of step with many intellectuals in France who have leaped to the defence of Roman Polanski, the former Hollywood director (Rosemary’s Baby, Chinatown, The Pianist) and convicted pedophile who fled the U.S. in 1977 after admitting to having sex with a 13 year old girl in a hot tub at Jack Nicholson’s home in the Hollywood Hills. Nice!

And it’s not just French artistes wearing “Free Polanski” buttons. The good ol’ liberal Hollywood community is also springing to Polanski’s defence, demanding he be given a “break,” that so much time has passed, and well, he’s such a great artist to which I’m tempted to say Hitler was an artist too. (And he didn’t molest kids as far as I know.)

But, as usually is the case, the situation isn’t as black and white as it appears on first blush. Precious few of us are angels. Who among us have no skeletons in the closet? We’ve all done things were ashamed of, especially in our youth. And as adults, who hasn’t buckled and done something they’ve regretted under stress? Or something totally out of character when we’ve been drinking or ingesting mood-altering substances?

In this vale of tears, there’s not many among us who can walk on water or claim to be pure as the driven snow. Corrupt politicians are everywhere. Many religious leaders have been convicted of numerous offences including the same one as Polanski and do we even need to talk about the excesses of the entertainment industry, sports, business – you name it.

So are some of us being too hard on poor Mr. Polanski? I don’t think so.

Without going into the sordid details, at the time Polanski was arrested he was originally charged with other offences in addition to having sex with a minor. They included rape, sodomy and giving drugs to a minor. Yuck! At the time of the incident, he said something about being a Jew in Poland at the time of the holocaust and how this had traumatized him.

I don’t for a minute want to minimize whatever happened to Polanski during the holocaust. A more traumatizing experience can hardly be imagined. But no other Jews I’m aware of have ever used their holocaust nightmare to justify or explain something as heinous as Polanski has admitted doing. This explanation, if it can be called that, is far too much of a stretch for me. Then, of course, there was the murder of his wife Sharon Tate at about the same time by the Manson gang. That was no doubt traumatizing and one can easily empathize with Polanski about that.

But some of Polanski’s defenders have indeed gone too far as Whoopi Goldberg found out when she strangely said in his defence: “I know it wasn’t rape-rape. I think it was something else, but I don’t believe it was rape-rape.”

Just what Ms. Goldberg thought it was is hard to say considering that Polanski plied his 13-year-old victim with champagne and drugs and told her he wanted to do a fashion shoot with her prior to the rape. Nevertheless 100 movie industry figures have signed a petition call for Polanski’s release.

Perhaps the most interesting comment has come from Samantha Gailey (now Samantha Geimer), Polanski’s victim now in her 40’s (Polanski was 44 at the time of the rape) who said the great director’s 32-year exile from the U.S. was “punishment enough.”

Geimer’s comment is probably the strongest statement of all in Polanski’s defence but it doesn’t appear to be carrying much weight with the Los Angeles Country District Attorney’s Office, which has publicly stated it won’t bow to pressure from Hollywood.

And not all the French are behind Polanski either. Director Luc Besson refused to sign the petition calling for Polanski’s release commenting: “I have a lot of affection for him. He is a man that I like very much, but nobody should be above the law.”

If that’s the case and Polanski is returned to the U.S., the “trauma” in his life may just be beginning.