ANGER AS SHOW BLURS LAMBERT KISS

A US television show has been accused of hypocrisy for blurring out a kiss between Adam Lambert and a male keyboardist but showing a kiss between two female singers.

Lambert appeared on The Early Show on CBS after ABC’s Good Morning America cancelled his planned appearance following the singer’s raunchy performance at the American Music Awards (AMA) on the weekend.

However, during the broadcast, The Early Show made the decision to blur the image of Adam kissing his keyboardist and then immediately after showed, un-blurred, an image of Madonna kissing Britney Spears at the 2003 MTV Video Music Awards.

“The Early Show’s decision this morning to blur Adam Lambert’s kiss from the American Music Awards reinforces an unfortunate double standard that is applied to openly gay performers,” said Jarrett Barrios, President of the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD).

“I would have hoped CBS would provide the same treatment for images of gay and lesbian people and not create an unfair double standard that treats our community differently. CBS regularly shows kisses throughout every day. The kiss was not blurred on ABC nor in news coverage on other networks. While we applaud The Early Show for featuring Adam Lambert, we have reached out to the show’s producers to express our concerns about their decision and offer ways they can make their coverage of gay and transgender people more fair.”

CBS, however, justified its decision by saying in a statement: “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.”

Speaking on The Early Show , Lambert refused to apologise for his performance at the AMA’s, saying that it was shown late at night and not when children should have been watching. He added that he didn’t think that there would have been that much controversy about the incident had he been a female singer, saying “I think it’s because I’m a gay male.”