Editing Gore Vidal (section)

===Polanski rape case===
{{Further|Roman Polanski sexual abuse case}}
In ''[[The Atlantic]]'' magazine interview "A Conversation with Gore Vidal" (October 2009), by John Meroney, Vidal spoke about topical and cultural matters of U.S. society. Asked his opinion about the arrest of the film director [[Roman Polanski]], in Switzerland, in September 2009, in response to an extradition request by U.S. authorities, for having fled the U.S. in 1978 to avoid jail for the [[statutory rape]] of a thirteen-year-old girl in Hollywood, Vidal said: "I really don't give a fuck. Look, am I going to sit and weep every time a young hooker feels as though she's been taken advantage of?"

Asked for elaboration, Vidal explained the cultural temper of the U.S. and of the Hollywood movie business in the 1970s:<ref name="John Meroney">{{cite web|url=https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2009/10/a-conversation-with-gore-vidal/307767/2/|title=A Conversation With Gore Vidal|author=John Meroney|date=October 28, 2009|work=The Atlantic|access-date=March 7, 2017|archive-date=January 4, 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150104100511/http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2009/10/a-conversation-with-gore-vidal/307767/2/|url-status=live}}</ref>
{{blockquote|
The [news] media can't get anything straight. Plus, there's usually an anti-Semitic and [[homophobia|anti-fag]] thing going on with the press—lots of crazy things. The idea that this girl was in her communion dress, a little angel, all in white, being raped by this awful Jew ''[[Polack]]o''—that's what people were calling him—well, the story is totally different now [2009] from what it was then [1970s]&nbsp;... Anti-Semitism got poor Polanski. He was also a foreigner. He did not subscribe to American values, in the least. To [his persecutors], that seemed vicious and unnatural.
}}

Asked to explain the term "American values", Vidal replied: "Lying and cheating. There's nothing better."<ref name="John Meroney"/>

In response to Vidal's opinion about the decades-old Polanski rape case, a spokeswoman for the organization [[Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests]], Barbara Dorris, said, "People should express their outrage, by refusing to buy any of his books", called Vidal a "mean-spirited buffoon" and said that, although "a boycott wouldn't hurt Vidal financially", it would "cause anyone else, with such callous views, to keep his mouth shut, and [so] avoid rubbing salt into the already deep [psychological] wounds of (the victims)" of sexual abuse.<ref>{{cite news |title=Gore Vidal rips Roman Polanski rape victim as 'hooker' |url=http://www.bostonherald.com/inside_track/celebrity_news/2009/11/gore_vidal_rips_roman_polanski_rape_victim_%E2%80%98hooker%E2%80%99|newspaper=[[Boston Herald]] |date=November 1, 2009 |access-date=January 10, 2015 |archive-date=December 28, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141228055456/http://www.bostonherald.com/inside_track/celebrity_news/2009/11/gore_vidal_rips_roman_polanski_rape_victim_%E2%80%98hooker%E2%80%99|url-status=live}}</ref>