“You know what happens to diminutive film directors who sleep with 13-year-old girls, don’t you? Huh? Wanna know? No? Okay. They lose their noses get arrested in Switzerland!”

Well, eventually. Roman Polanski pleaded guilty to having sex with a minor 32 years ago, but took off for France before he could be put in jail. He’s been keeping out of the U.S. ever since, though he kept on making movies and visiting various European countries, and it looked like that was going to go on forever until he was nabbed in Zurich last week. They are holding him there, awaiting an extradition request from the U.S.

Now a group of artists and filmmakers, including Woody Allen, Pedro Almodovar, Wes Anderson, Asia Argento, Darren Aronofsky, Harmony Korinne, and Wim Wenders have signed a petition calling for his release. A number of film and cultural organizations have signed on, as well.

Others have been vocal in their support of the 76-year-old Polanski, as well. His teenage victim, now 45, who successfully sued the director, has called for the charges to be dropped.

Not everyone is donning a “Free Roman” button just yet, though.

A number of conservative commentators - perhaps unaware of the many conservative and religious figures who’ve managed to shake off charges of sexual misconduct over the years - see the support for Polanski as an example of decadent Hollywood protecting its own, and another blatant double-standard for celebrities.

See Rev. Thomas J. Reese, writing in The National Post, for example:

Imagine if the Knight of Columbus decided to give an award to a pedophile priest who had fled the country to avoid prison. The outcry would be universal. Victim groups would demand the award be withdrawn and that the organization apologize. Religion reporters would be on the case with the encouragement of their editors. Editorial writers and columnist would denounce the knights as another example of the insensitivity of the Catholic Church to sexual abuse.

And they would all be correct. And I would join them.

But why is there not similar outrage directed at the film industry for giving an award to Roman Polanski, who not only confessed to statutory rape of a 13-year-old girl but fled the country prior to sentencing? Why have film critics and the rest of the media ignored this case for 31 years? He even received an Academy award in 2003. Are the high priests of the entertainment industry immune to criticism?

I think some of these commentators might want to look in their own backyards for deviants – when you look at the actual numbers, for example, it becomes difficult to argue DougJ’s assertion that “if Roman Polanski had been a priest, there is very, very little chance that he ever would have been prosecuted in the first place.”

And yet, I can’t quite get along with the idea of giving Roman a free pass. Without getting into the whole question of when a person is old enough to make responsible decisions concerning drunken sex with Polish film directors in Jack Nicholson’s house, the fact still stands that Polanski pleaded guilty to a serious crime, and has been avoiding punishment for more than three decades, and it’s a little simple-minded and knee-jerk to say that, well, because the guy made a couple of great movies, he ought to get off. (Figuratively speaking.) I’m all for the idea that artists should be allowed to be as deviant as they like in their art, and I do think there’s lots of room for discussion about public morality and “community standards” and the rest of it, but I get a little restless when the idea gets put forth that artists, by sheer virtue of being artists, should be given a kind of immunity when it comes to anything unsavoury.

On that score, I am in full agreement with liberal blogger Atrios:

I think our society has become a bit hysterical about teen sexuality, and that age limits and punishments for statutory rape have, in some states, started to get a bit exteme even if such relationships are inappropriate.

But the undisputed facts of this case are that she was given booze and drugs and raped. There may be other procedural legal issues as I said, but I really can’t believe people are minimizing what happened. What is wrong with these people?