I'm not really sure what to make of this dude. I mean I'm not someone who listens to his music, as that's not my demographic. I heard his version of Gary Jules' "Mad World" (which was itself a cover of Tears for Fears decidedly more upbeat version), and was pretty impressed. He can definitely sing his ass off.

And I'm firmly in the corner of gay rights. I'm all for gay marriage, and the full nine, so to speak. I'm against Don't Ask Don't Tell, which forces gay men and women to not only lie to everyone around them to preserve their job in the military, defending all of us, but it also forces them to lie to themselves, and to not be comfortable with themselves and their surroundings and they're place in the world. I think if you're gay that's fine, and you should be able to be comfortable enough to admit who you are and what you like, and that's all great.

I don't like laws set up to punish people because they're gay, which is what more than a couple laws on various state books do.

 Having said that, Lambert needs to, for lack of a better phrase, tone the gay down. I mean, as I said I'm all for individuality and free expression of said individuality. But seriously, what the hell was that at the Awards? I don't watch awards shows so I didn't see it live. And even if I had watched it, they apparantly edited out his actions for the west coast feed, but I saw some pictures of what happened and I have to say I'm not sure what this is supposed to do for Lambert.

I think he's at a point where he's sort of carving out his own image. Before American Idol I think it was easy for him to kind of hide who he was except to those closest to him. He was surrounded by people who loved him and who protected him. Now he's in the public eye thanks to his great run on American Idol and now he's got to face the press and deal with the TMZ's and the Perez Hilton's and whatnot. Although thinking about it I think he'll have a lot less to worry about Hilton unless he sucker punches him or whatever.

Everything he does will be magnified. There's no more sneaking off with someone and not expecting it to be on the internet by the time he gets home. There's no more privacy, and I wonder if he's able to deal with that. Because you contrast what he looked like on American Idol (at top of this article), and what he looks like now (below), and he looks like he got bumrushed by the Glam era of rock music. The heavy makeup, the shoving a guy's head in his crotch, making out with a keyboardist, and then flipping the crowd off are NOT good looks.

I'm all for being who you wanna be, but there's a limit to what people will take, and like it or not there is a line that you have to not really cross unless you just flat out don't care.

And that's where I think Lambert has just royall screwed up. Think about his demographic, at least the ones who would run out and buy his album. Kids. Parents of kids who will buy the new album for their kids. Soccer moms who loved him on the show.

Essentially middle America.

How many of those Middle America soccer moms that saw the AMA awards and sat there shocked as their kid was watching him shoving some dude's face into his crotch, are going to let their daughters go out and buy that album now? How many of them are going to go and grab it for their kids when they are in Wal-Mart?

I think he's, as I said in the beginning, just destroyed the closet and is not going back. Perhaps he's going for the anti-Clay Aiken move where he doesn't want to be the clean cut white boy who happens to be Gay. I think he's just going all out (sorry) and just doesn't care..

This will hurt him in album sales, but he'll get a whole new following out of this, I'm sure. He'll get a lot of people buying his album figuring he's obviously not the cookie cutter "American Idol cutout" type of singer like everyone before him. Will that following make up for the massive exodus of the Middle America fans? To be sure, there were those in Middle America that wouldn't have bought it anyway JUST because he's gay.

The in your face (again...sorry) flaunting his sexuality isn't going to help. And there IS a double standard here, I freely admit. Think about what he did and realize that EVERY. SINGLE. THING that he did has been done before to much acclaim, albeit with minor controversy.

The shoving someone's face in your crotch? Madonna has done that at numerous tours to a bit of controversy, but not much. Same with tonguing down a dancer/band member.

Grabbing his crotch? the AMA's just gave four awards to a guy who elevated grabbing your crotch to an artform.

Flipping the crowd off? Well, sportsfans have had plenty of examples of that going on just in this past week or so.

So the reason this is a problem is because he's gay. I think anyone that says otherwise is delusional. And that is completely 100% wrong to feel that way, but hey. It's America. And it's the world we live in.