It would seem that it is now more acceptable to be someone who is convicted of felony assault than to be an openly gay performer in the United States.

As is well-known by this time, Adam Lambert, the second place finisher in this year’s American Idol competition, raised some eyebrows last Sunday with his performance on the American Music Awards (AMAs).  During his performance of his new single, “For Your Entertainment”, which closed the show, he groped a female dancer, shoved a male dancer’s face into his crotch and kissed his male keyboardist.  Much has been made of this, but seeing as it was done just short of 11:00 P.M. EST, it has been more of a social outcry than anything else.

While his appearance on Good Morning America was canceled earlier this week, his replacement wasn’t known for a while.  Now, when trying to replace one ‘controversial’ performer, who ABC claims they canceled because he was “unpredictable on live TV”, wouldn’t you think they might go with someone a bit more safe?  Oh no, you go with Chris Brown who famously beat Rihanna earlier this year and is now convicted of felony assault over the case.

Makes perfect sense to me.

So, essentially ABC just told the nation, “It’s okay, we have kept you all safe from the evil gay man … now ladies, get ready to swoon over the repentant Chris Brown!  Aw, isn’t it cute when men apologize?”

Of course, it isn’t just ABC that has made poor decisions this week in relation to Adam Lambert in wake of his AMA’s performance.  When Good Morning America canceled, CBS snapped him up for the Early Show to discuss the controversy.  During the segment they showed images of Adam Lambert’s now infamous kiss with his keyboardist, but they blurred it out.  Fair enough.  However, the show then compared it to the Madonna and Britney Spears kiss from the MTV Video Music Awards (VMAs) several years ago, and that image was shown un-blurred.

Say what?

CBS explained its decision to Extra:

We gave this some real thought. The Madonna image is very familiar and has appeared countless times including many times on morning television. The Adam Lambert image is a subject of great current controversy, has not been nearly as widely disseminated, and for all we know, may still lead to legal consequences.

Okay, how in the world would this lead to ‘legal consequences’? It’s a kiss between two consenting adults, no body parts are uncovered, and it is in no way different from the Madonna image.  As my late maternal grandfather would have said, “I smell feces of the male of the bovine species.”

While I feel CBS is lying, what ABC is just offensive on so many levels that it is astonishing.  I have stated publicly in some episodes of Scattercast how disgusting I find the beating of women, and if Good Morning America had booked just about anyone else on the planet I wouldn’t have said one word about this.  However, when you book someone convicted of beating a woman so you can avoid an “unpredictable” gay man?  Yeah, you aren’t sending out a bad message at all!