Right and Wrong

James O. Born

Events this week affected this post in a big way. I’d been formulating this blog entry for several weeks and had even made a couple of notes. Then the arrest in Switzerland this weekend of Roman Polanski brought it into even sharper focus. Everyone's got an opinion on Mr. Polanski’s talent, tragedies and legal situation but lost in the shuffle is the bigger issue of what he did that the state of California found so objectionable and frankly so did I. In 1977, at the age of forty-four, he had sex with a thirteen-year-old girl. I'm sorry but that's unacceptable. That's me speaking as a father of a teenage girl, as a law enforcement official, as a writer, as a relatively responsible adult, hell, it's me speaking as a football fan. Despite his obvious talent and the heartbreak he suffered, sleeping with a child is something I have a real problem with.

I know all about the circus courtroom and the publicity hungry judge. I know about the lawyers and the plea agreement and about the now middle-aged victim who just wants it all go away. I could not care less if Mr. Polanski is extradited to the U.S. or dies peacefully in his bed in France twenty-five years from now. The fact that he would consider sleeping with a child makes me shudder.

He is not the only celebrity who seems to be excused for his lapses in judgment because he's wealthy and people like his films. Woody Allen married his stepdaughter. And she was past eighteen and legal adult at the time and they are still married. That doesn’t make it right. At some point she was the sister to his children and a little girl while he was a middle-aged man. Am I the only one that finds this creepy?

Then there's Michael Vick who restarted his career in the NFL this week after being convicted of crimes related to dog fighting. We've heard the accounts of how he tortured and murdered dogs. This goes beyond creepy to me and moves on to sickening. Despite that, he played quarterback on a few plays for the Philadelphia Eagles this weekend. The major difference here, and one that I find hard to argue with, is that Mr. Vick did pay a debt to society by spending almost 2 years in prison. He has clearly stated that he made a mistake and that he will not engage in activity like that ever again. He sounds convincing when I hear him in interviews. I'm interested in giving people a second chance when they admit wrongdoing and have paid for their mistakes, although I must admit this is a stretch in Michael Vick's case.

Another way to look at all three of these instances is to think what would happen if the guy who fixes your garbage disposal had sex with your thirteen-year-old neighbor. Even if she agreed to it and was drunk at the time, I doubt you'd think it was okay. Or what if your second husband, who owns a video store, decided to marry your twenty-one-year-old daughter. Would that be an issue for you? Would you use an auto mechanic had been in the paper for electrocuting a dog?

Sorry to be a little bit of a downer on a beautiful Thursday morning but I've been thinking about this for a few weeks now. I've met too many kids whose lives were shattered because some adult thought thirteen was old enough to make an informed decision.

Talented or not, wealthy or poor, we should each have to face roughly the same consequences if we’re caught doing something really heinous.

Do you agree or am I a blockhead? I’m interested in all opinions but please don’t mention Chinatown as a defense. Thank Robert Towne for an excellent screenplay instead. And forgive Towne for his big lapse of judgement: writing the screenplay for Tom Cruise and Days of Thunder.

(Note, since I wrote this I've seen alot of essays on this. None influenced this blog.)