One can get caught up in the popular ideal that all celebrity animal rights activists are open minded, freewheeling, liberal-leaning souls - and then along comes...{Chrissie Hynde Voice} Breeezhee Barrdoh! {/Chrissie Hynde Voice}...who was fined €5,000 (her fourth such speech-related fine) for "racial hatred inciting" remarks made in her recent book, A Scream In The Silence.

Not sure what - if any - conclusion to draw from her choice of title, how it co-opts the name of the legendary 1984 anti-abortion documentary, Silent Scream. Probably her analogy to the equally helpless, silent nature of animals and foetuses against euthanasia, vivisection and abortion, but that's just my guess. However, race isn't her only sticking point; Bardot has a broad menu of antipathies.

From Reuters:

The Paris court sentenced Bardot, 69, on Thursday for remarks made in her book "A Scream in the Silence", an outspoken attack on gays, immigrants and the jobless which shocked France last year. In the book, she laments the "Islamisation of France" and the "underground and dangerous infiltration of Islam". "Mme Bardot presents Muslims as barbaric and cruel invaders, responsible for terrorist acts and eager to dominate the French to the extent of wanting to exterminate them," the court said.

She told the court that France was going through a period of decadence and said she opposed inter-racial marriage. "I was born in 1934, at that time inter-racial marriage wasn't approved of," she said. "There are many new languages in the new Europe. Mediocrity is taking over from beauty and splendour. There are many people who are filthy, badly dressed and badly shaven."

In her book, she also attacks homosexuals as "fairground freaks", condemns the presence of women in government and denounces the "scandal of unemployment benefit". Bardot's attacks on Muslims prompted anti-racism groups to launch legal proceedings against the former star, who turned her back on cinema after 46 films to concentrate on animal welfare.

Bardot, in her 1960s heyday the epitome of French feminine beauty, was already fined $3,250 in January 1998 for inciting racial hatred in comments about civilian massacres in Algeria. Four months earlier, a court fined her for saying France was being overrun by sheep-slaughtering Muslims.

France may have a policy of punishing their versions of objectionable speech with monetary fines, but here in the U.S., the FCC is basically doing the same thing on a giant-killer scale, with a different standard for what's unacceptable. Record-setting fines, like the recent $1.75 million judgment against Clear Channel for Howard Stern's 'obscenity' are becoming commonplace - but if you plugged Bardot's lines into a conservative shock-jock's mouth you'd barely get a whimper from the peanut gallery.

The FCC seems to think words and images referring to sex and excretion are more harmful to our society than racist, classist, homophobic or any other form of hate speech, and a disturbing message seems to be emerging: you can't love who you want, but you're free to hate whomever you please.

If she was in the United States I would have to say that my belief in the ideals of free speech means I would categorically defend her right to say or write whatever she wishes, regardless of how petulant, crotchety and all-around misanthropic those ideas seemed. I wonder if Bardot held these beliefs when she was "on top of the world," a Star, well-regarded, perpetually-papparazzi'd and not the recluse she is today. To me she sounds like a profoundly unhappy person with little joy in her life, which animals' unconditionally forgiving nature seems best suited to provide.

She hasn't aged well at all, and it has nothing to do with wrinkles or gray hair. There's not a thing wrong with being an outspoken grande dame, as Katherine Hepburn and others have amply proven. The truth is, hate is plain ugly, regardless of the hater's age, race, religion or gender. "Beauty may only be skin deep," but Bardot is doing her part to prove that ugly really goes down to the bone.

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