The Adam Lambert problem

An excerpt from Peggy Noonan 's article in the Wall Street Journal:

This was behind the resentment at the Adam Lambert incident on ABC in November. The compromise was breached. It was a broadcast network, it was prime time, it was the American Music Awards featuring singers your 11-year-old wants to see, and your 8-year-old. And Mr. Lambert came on and—again, in front of your children, in the living room, in the middle of your peaceful evening—uncorked an act in which he, in the words of various news reports the next day, performed "faux oral sex" featuring "S&M play," "bondage gear," "same-sex makeouts" and "walking a man and woman around the stage on a leash."

People were offended, and they complained. Mr. Lambert seemed surprised and puzzled. With an idiot's logic that was nonetheless logic, he suggested he was the focus of bigotry: They let women act perverse on TV all the time, so why can't a gay man do it? Fifteen hundred callers didn't see it as he did and complained to ABC, which was negligent but in the end responsive: They changed the West Coast feed and apparently kept Mr. Lambert off "Good Morning America."

Mr. Lambert's act left viewers feeling not just offended but assaulted. Again, "we don't care what you do in New York," but don't include us in it, don't bring it into our homes. Our children are here.

I don't mean to make too much of it. In the great scheme of things a creepy musical act doesn't matter much. But increasingly people feel at the mercy of the Adam Lamberts, who of course view themselves, when criticized, as victims of prudery and closed-mindedness. America is not prudish or closed-minded, it is exhausted. It cannot be exaggerated, how much Americans feel besieged by the culture of their own country, and to what lengths they have to go to protect their children from it.

It's things like this, every bit as much as taxes and spending, that leave people feeling jarred and dismayed, and worried about the future of their country.

More here.

[Editor's note] We at Jerry Curl are not foolish enough to believe that everyone sees things our way. Moreover, we're not out to change any one's mind about what they believe. After all, that's why we live in a democracy. But there comes a point where you no choice but to point out the sheer ridiculousness of the opposing side.

When it comes to America's (undisputed) cultural degradation, there's plenty of blame to go around. Contrary to the Ms. Noonan's, the O'Reilly's, and the Glenn Beck's of the world, the Right isn't exempt from wrongdoing. From Larry Craig's foot-tapping to the Governor of South Carolina stepping out on his wife, the Conservative movement in this country stopped living by its principles a long time ago-- both personally and politically. What's more, their unveiled hypocrisy has done more damage to religion from within religion, than any other opposing force.

Did Adam Lambert go too far? We didn't think so. Entertainers like him do just that, entertain. Love him or leave him, but don't place him at the forefront of a cultural wave that does not distinguish between right or left, conservative or liberal, religious or not.

So before Ms. Noonan points the finger at performers performing, we suggest she not throw stones in glass houses.