In Israel, Adam Lambert would have won

[IndianaGreen]

In Israel, Adam Lambert would have won

By Bradley Burston

If it had been up to Israelis, "American Idol" runner-up Adam Lambert would have won.

Not because he's Jewish. Because he can sing.

Israelis keep asking me why Adam Lambert, whose gargantuan talent clearly places him in the category of Touched By God, didn't win. Here is one reason:

Because many, many Americans don't want to think that God works that way.

I should state at the outset that is not a column about music. This is, at heart, about deviance, and how societies respond to the deviants in their midst - whether with fascistic denial ("In Iran, we don't have homosexuals"), or with an unease that spurs them to seek desperate refuge in the bland.

Seldom has a singing contest been so clear-cut a case of no contest. In a final duet alongside eventual winner Kris Allen, Adam Lambert sang him off the stage. And no one knew that better than Kris Allen.

So what was it about Lambert that moved tens of millions of Americans to make sure that he would not win?

Some, at least, decided to take a stand. It was time to cast a vote against deviant behavior. Against men who keep their eyeliner thick and their sexual preference determinedly indeterminate. Against a polite, generous, fearsomely gifted deviant.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1087783.html

[Divine Discontent]

1. pretty much sums it up - nothing else makes any sense. lol

just listening to both of them sing the "winner's song" of which neither knew of before this month, and hearing Adam soar and Kris painfully pull the mic away as he strained his vocal chords to try and hit higher notes, was painful and aggravating.

The one image captured the embarrassment for Kris perfect, after Adam had hugged and congratulated him, and Ryan talked to him a bit where he said "Adam deserved this, not me", Adam came back towards him and Kris put his head in Adam's shoulder.

I'd have been embarrassed to take the title.

LOL

It's only a silly entertainment competition BUT these guys put a year of their lives into this and it was a good case of showing how even 10% of viewers being bigots can change outcomes of VOTING...


Adam will be gigantic compared to Kris, btw.

[IndianaGreen]

2. The policy in the IDF is, 'Don't ask, and nobody cares.'

Bradley Burston makes some very good points in his piece on Adam Lambert:

The trend in Israel, meanwhile, may be just the opposite. A recent online poll commissioned by Channel 2 Television showed that 52 percent of all Israelis (and 76 percent of secular Israelis) favor civil marriage for gays; 51 percent of all Israelis back full equal rights for gays and lesbians; and 80 percent of all Israelis would be willing to be neighbors to gays and lesbians.

The military in Israel has also shown more openness to gays than its American counterpart. As one observer noted, "The policy in the IDF is, 'Don't ask, and nobody cares.'"

<snip>

So, from one Southern California Jewish deviant to another, I'd like to extend Adam Lambert an open invitation to come visit a world fountainhead of deviance.

Don't be shocked if you feel oddly at home (in Israel).

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1087783.html