ABC received thousands of complaints about American Idol’s Adam Lambert. His performance on the American Music Awards last Sunday night included him groping a female dancer, kissing a male band mate and shoving a male performer’s face into his groin. ABC claims they didn’t know anything about this and Lambert admits it was a last minute change. ABC edited the broadcast before it aired on the West coast three hours later. Lambert is calling this discrimination. He said if it were two women there wouldn’t be so much controversy. He refers to Britney and Madonna’s kiss on the MTV Music Awards in 2003, however the Britney/Madonna kiss was on cable network MTV and his performance was on a major network. Maybe he lacked taste considering the young audience the AMA attracts (I heard about this from my 13-year-old niece) but I have to agree with him. Our culture is O.K. with risqué performances between two women but have a lot less tolerance when it comes to men.

So is ABC at the mercy of what Americans can tolerate, or are they discriminating because he is gay? By censoring Lambert's performance ABC is saying the content of his performance is wrong and telling us that free expression has a limit.