In the flick, the director enlists every CGI trick in the book to destroy various religious icons– including the Sistine Chapel, St. Peter’s Basilica and the Christ the Redeemer statue. And for those of you who worship at the altar of Obama, the White House gets nailed as well.

But there was one thing missing among the carnage: an Islamic target.

Emmerich at his London home.

According to Sci Fi Wire, by way of Cinematical.com, this was no accident. In an interview, the director said he hoped to destroy the Kaaba, an Islamic holy site, but his fellow screenwriter Harald Kloser persuaded him not to.

Here’s what the hack had to say about crushing the Kaaba:

“Well, I wanted to do that… but my co-writer Harald said I will not have a fatwa on my head because of a movie. And he was right. … We have to all … in the Western world … think about this. You can actually … let … Christian symbols fall apart, but if you would do this with [an] Arab symbol, you would have … a fatwa, and that sounds a little bit like what the state of this world is. So it’s just something which I kind of didn’t [think] was [an] important element anyway in the film, so I kind of left it out.”

And so, he echoes what I said nearly two years ago on this show: Hollywood screws with Christians because Christians don’t behead people. But tweak Islam, and you could end up like director Theo van Gogh – dead on a street with a flag impaled on your chest. Roland picks the safe target because he’d rather live, and by “live,” I mean “beat our brains to death with yet more effects-laden dreck.” As my guinea pig, Captain Whiskers might say, “All hail the dependable cowardice of our film industry!”

He might say that, if he could talk.

Anyway, the difference between good and evil is pretty clear. Good people might annoy you about having prayer in schools; evil people throw acid in girls’ faces if they wish to go to school. Trashing the former, while ignoring the latter – proves that Roland has the gonads of a shrimp.

(Note: I haven’t actually seen gonads on a shrimp, but I imagine they’re really small.)

And if you disagree with me, then you’re probably a racist.

Tonight we have Annabelle Gurewitch, Dr. Drew Pinsky, Andrew Breitbart, and Damian Abraham of F*cked Up.

Later!

My apologies for bringing up old crap, but Clooney’s statement, especially the part about how he’s so proud to be out of touch, is one of the most bafflingly odd things I’ve ever heard coming from Clooney, who’s also famous for telling anyone who’ll listen that everybody tells him all the time how brave he was for making a black and white movie about the red scare. It’s very revealing that Clooney would say this, to cheers, a mere three years after a child-rapist was handed an award by that same Academy.

Cut to the present, the child-rapist is caught, and much of Hollywood is outraged. “He should be allowed to live his life,” wrote Peter Bart, his words practically streaked with tears. Hey, guess what, Pete? He has been allowed to live his life. They’re all like Clooney, proud be out of touch. But why? To answer this question, we turn to the genius of one George Costanza.

They’re different than the rest of us. They’re “delicate geniuses.”

Back to the Academy Awards, who can forget Sean Penn humorlessly, smugly, embarrassingly chiding Chris Rock for poking fun at fellow delicate genius Jude Law? Rock’s offense? A joke, dripping with truth, which pointed out that Jude Law is not a box office draw. The box office doesn’t matter to them. Hell, look at the movies they nominate nowadays. They’ve grown more out of touch than ever. You think “The Sting” would get nominated for Best Picture today? Much less win? Or “Jaws”?

And then there’s David Cross (of “Arrested Development” fame), who brags that he snorted coke near Obama. If you don’t think that’s super-cool, then you’re probably a stupid Christian. He’s one of those atheists for whom it’s not nearly enough to just not believe in God, he has to build a stand-up career out of his atheism. He’s always been strangely uninformed about Christianity, but that doesn’t stop him from cracking hipster jokes about Christians. Back in 1999, he joked that he couldn’t wait to make fun of Christians when Y2K turned out to be a global non-factor. In this hilarious segment, Cross discussed Y2K more than my Southern Baptist Pastor did in an entire year.

Cross’ cocaine story, coupled with the story last week about Academy Award fixture Hilary Swank–the she sashays around the house nude in front of her boyfriend’s six-year-old kid–illustrates what’s gone wrong with the delicate geniuses.  Hilary, please, put us on a need-to-know basis. You were way cooler when you were the underdog, the “Next Karate Kid” made good. We simply know too much about the delicate geniuses. The delicate geniuses would be more respected and adored by their audiences if they embraced a little mystery. Remember when Sean Penn crazily demanded privacy? He was sooooo much cooler then. We all knew Paul Newman was a liberal, but I never got the impression that he thought that made him smarter than his audience.

But that’s exactly how the current stars sound when they take credit for the Civil Rights Movement, or wish shame on the grandchildren of people with different opinions than their own (that’s you, Mr. Penn), or indulge us with their stories about getting a snootful of Bolivian Marching Powder while in the company of The Savior, or traipsing around nekkid in the company of kids. They’re enlightened, you see, and we’re the uneducated masses.

Sean Hannity and Michael Moore had a discussion of sorts on ‘Hannity’ tonight.  It was certainly an event to see Moore on a conservative’s show (much like Al Gore, Moore is notorious for not going toe to toe with prominent conservatives).  The conversation itself seemed disjointed and a lot time was spent by both Hannity and Moore jockeying to set the agenda instead of clarifying and challenging differences.  Moore came off as plenty appealing, a jovial and confidant representative for his side, but just as with Obama’s speeches, you would get a completely different perception of the man and his ideas if you read what he said instead of watched it.  And by different, we mean nauseating.

More analysis from Big Hollywood contributors is likely to follow, but we’re turning you all loose now.  Some discussion bullet points:

-“I’m not a multi-multi millionaire.” -Michael Moore

-Apparently our foes in the Middle East are perpetually on monkey bars….?

-Christians are in no position to judge the 9/11 terrorists.

-Is there a conservative on Earth who could get away with invoking God and religion as much as Moore does?

-Hannity was soft on Moore. Good or bad move?

Have at it.

Ann Althouse:

“The most striking thing in the movie was the religion. I think Moore is seriously motivated by Christianity. He says he is (and has been since he was a boy). And he presented various priests, Biblical quotations, and movie footage from “Jesus of Nazareth” to make the argument that Christianity requires socialism. With this theme, I found it unsettling that in attacking the banking system, Moore presented quite a parade of Jewish names and faces. He never says the word “Jewish,” but I think the anti-Semitic theme is there. We receive long lectures about how capitalism is inconsistent with Christianity, followed a heavy-handed array of — it’s up to you to see that they are — Jewish villains.
“Am I wrong to see Moore as an anti-Semite? I don’t know, but the movie worked as anti-Semitic propaganda. I had to struggle to fight off the idea the movie seemed to want to plant in my head.”

Read the pull piece here.

After his big international success with the superb martial arts saga “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon,” Chinese-born film director Ang Lee continued in the eclectic manner indicated by his earlier films, jumping from genre to genre and style to style. Over the years he has directed the genial “Sense and Sensibility,” the thoughtful historical film “Ride with the Devil,” the gloomy family drama “The Ice Storm,” the homosexual love story “Brokeback Mountain,” and the inept superhero action film Hulk, among others.

This eclecticism and the tendency toward a rather downbeat style have kept Lee from developing a large following among U.S. moviegoers, as has the fact that he tends not to work with the top stars or in popular genres. Thus it was perhaps to be expected that his latest, the historical comedy “Taking Woodstock,” didn’t do much business at U.S. movie theaters in its opening weekend, taking in only $3.7 million and finishing ninth in the box office standings.

Released without much hoopla other than the general publicity surrounding the fortieth anniversary of the Woodstock concerts, the film simply hasn’t generated much interest among audiences. A serious comedy with a homosexual lead character plus a cross-dressing Marine and a variety of other cute, quirky types is just not any kind of an original idea these days. The movies are full of such characters, and we’ve all heard just about enough about Woodstock.

Despite the odd variety of subject matter, time periods, and geographic locations of his films, Lee has in fact been consistent in one way: conveying modern antinomian-individualist platitudes and shibboleths. For years he has functioned as the champion of the social outsider–a position guaranteed to earn plaudits from the contemporary media elite. Thus his Academy Award-winning and ecstatically praised “Brokeback Mountain” was perhaps the clearest distillation of the point of view evident in all of his films.

Although Lee’s passion for individualism to the point of antinomianism has sometimes had very interesting results–as in “Ride with the Devil,” with its open sympathy for the Confederacy–it has more often resulted in compendia of social-liberation cliches.

“Taking Woodstock” follows this template exactly. It assumes the U.S. elite’s accepted point of view of Woodstock as a critical event in the nation’s much-needed process of liberation from stifling bourgeois conformity, etc., which ushered in a new world of greater authenticity that has unfortunately been continually thwarted by forces of repression, especially business people and those vile and pesky fundamentalist Christians who still somehow infest the republic despite freely available abortions.

This cliched and indeed platitudinous notion was boring and silly when Milos Forman brought it to the big screen in “Hair” in 1979, and it is particularly obsolete today, when there is an entire genre of stoner comedies about young people living the Woodstock life while enjoying the benefits of bourgeois comfort and prosperity, plus a wider genre of zany comedies centering on the amazingly free and indeed feckless lives of American young people. If today’s young people are being oppressed by Puritan witch-hunters, there’s very little evidence of it. The public schools, run by an aggressively secular government, are in fact the real bane of their lives.

Thus the idea of Woodstock Nation as something distinct from the rest of American life and in fact quite heroic is simply absurd and fatuous in a nation populated in good part by what columnist David Brooks calls the Bohemian Bourgeois–people who are able to live as freely as hippies in their free time while still enjoying the prosperity and stability of bourgeois life.

No, the real story of the contemporary United States is not a yearning for liberation from repressive Christian theocrats. On the contrary, as the Tea Party movement and related phenomena make clear, the real concern is for liberation from the strangling hand of an elitist government and a desire for a more bourgeois–and family-friendly culture.

In such a context, there should be little wonder why audiences don’t rush out to subject themselves to a couple of hours of cute, smug, elitist cliches. They get enough of that on the nightly news.

To start with, Brad Pitt said that he was thinking of running for mayor of New Orleans, on an “Anti-religion, pro-legalization of marijuana and pro-gay marriage” platform. I know, I know… What a risky position to take in Tinseltown, right?

After Brads continued “anti-religion” commentary, Bill Maher decided to step up the game with his uniquely hateful brand of bigotry that’s made him oh so popular with 13-year-old atheists everywhere. In a display of “compassion,” Pitt went on to say, “Well I don’t think any Christians watch this show anyway.”

See what happened there…?  Without even realizing it, Brad Pitt’s showed us that his use of the word “religion” is really inter-changeable with “Christianity,” as is the case with most of Hollywood. The entertainment industry is never anti-Religion; it’s simply anti-Christian. This goes both hand-in-hand with Hollywood’s obsession with immorality, as well as their compulsion to take shots at society’s whipping boy while praising themselves for their “risky performances.”

Brad then went on to say, “I never wanted to step on anyone’s religion” (don’t worry, that doesn’t stop him from doing so immediately afterward), “Until I started to see it define policy.”

Ooooh okay Brad, I get it. You don’t mind people having a strong worldview… Until it begins to manifest itself through their actions… Unless of course their world-view is “pro-marijuana” such as your own as displayed by your subsequent trip down memory lane where you fondly recalled your joint-rolling escapades.

Hollywood Bottom-line: If someone’s “religion” is nothing more than moral relativism, it should absolutely determine policy. If it actually adheres to an established code of conduct/ethics, you better keep it to yourself you, jerk!

*Note*: Keep in mind that none of this applies to Islam. You see, in Hollywood, the most anti-gay, anti-women, anti-peace religion gets a free pass in the name of political correctness. Just keep this in mind if you’re trying to make sense of everything.

“I was raised in a religious household… It just didn’t work for me in the long run,” Brad went on to say. Heck, I guess it wouldn’t work for me either if I wanted to live a life of hedonistic bliss similar to our Hollywood counterparts. If I were living a life of booze, sex and cocaine-off-of-the-ladies-hipbones, the last thing I’d want is to have held myself accountable to a power greater than myself.

Hollywood, we get it. The Christian faith just doesn’t work for you “in the long run.” However, for a large percentage of this country (the same country that makes your movies millions of dollars), it does. So please, for all of our sakes, keep your “beliefs to yourself” and just “stop the hate.”

Can I get an “Amen”?

But as I’ve often noted in the past (most recently here), getting too caught up in the surfaces of cultural products often causes one to fail to see their true meaning. That’s the case with “Family Values.”

Certainly the story seems calculated to make a particular religious belief look bad, specifically evangelical Christianity. It concerns a serial killer who is a evidently devout Christian. (And indeed, the numerous promos on the USA Network leading up to the airing of the episode highlighted that sensationalistic concept.) In addition, the episode’s title, “Family Values,” seems calculated to annoy evangelical Christians, in an obvious sardonic reference to former Vice President Dan Quayle’s most famous political quest.

The man, apparently happily married and the father of a teenage girl, has set out on a campaign of murders after being fired as a scapegoat after his bank lost money on subprime loans they had forced him to make.

Thus the villain is a twofer: a murdering Christian driven to it by evil, rapacious capitalists. He’s a an anti-Christian socialist’s dream, and hence a superb bogeyman for our contemporary elites.

This mad–though seemingly normal-seeming–villain is “killing people to send them to Heaven,” as the police captain puts it. In the course of the episode we are shown several murders he commits, and realize that he’s seriously deranged. In the dramatic climax of the episode, the show’s main character, NYPD detective Bobby Goren, discusses religion with the killer, in order to get under his skin and lure him into confessing his crimes. That’s one of the show’s formula elements, Goren’s use of psychology to trap the killer.

Thus Goren debates conceptions of God with the killer, and on the surface it seems clear that he’s doing it just to trap him. There’s more to the scene, however, which makes it more sopisticated–and much more sympathetic to Christianity and to the idea of a caring, benevolent God–than is apparent on the surface.

The killer’sconception of God is as a distant, unforgiving deity, one who expects us to pay for our own sins. Goren homes in on that notion and attacks it astutely. In doing so, he argues exactly as a Christian would; the idea of God that Goren presents is quite biblically accurate, whereas that of the fanatic is a perversion of the Gospel (and indeed something of an inversion of it).

Ultimately, Goren says that the killer does not serve God, he serves Satan, “the liar, the trickster; . . . You serve the deceiver,” he says.

Now, Goren clearly is not presenting himself as a Christian but instead using theology to accomplish the same sort of psychological manipulation he employs against all the criminals he faces. In the end, however, his arguments show a very sound understanding of the Jewish and Christian conception of God and effectively convey it to the audience. It’s a very interesting episode in that way, and much more favorable to religion than a mere surface look may reveal.

Nope.  Not saying I’ve consulted the Creator, but…I have it on good authority that that virgin-in-paradise thingie is just a cheap, bucket-o-baloney BS recruiting tool. 

Psych!

So all you would-be jihadist bombers with a hard-on to plant the IED’s that are designed to kill our brave servicemen… hey, find something else to do with your hard-on, Sparky, instead of waiting to use it on those 72 clueless virtual babettes.  If you’re that lonely and pathetic and worthless, hop on the ubiquitous 25-hour Internet porn sites, take tool in hand, and work out three minutes of your destiny right there in the privacy of your mud hovel.  Keep the explosives at home!  Your imagined glory doesn’t give a sh*t about you and you blowing up an American G.I. won’t keep you from an eternity of teeth gnashing and anal herpes, so get your head out of your poo-hole, and go get a real job – like maybe something that helps people instead of kills them.  Just a thought.

But talk about irony — how’s that for a sad, sick joke?  These devoted extremists, buying the whole jihad warrior myth hook, line and stinker; keeping themselves religiously devout and chaste…waiting for the ultimate reward for their heroic, murderous acts of carnage…and they don’t go to heaven at all.

They go straight to hell!

It’s almost funny.  Or at least it would be, if it weren’t so terribly sad.  A small, extremist segment of one of the world’s largest religion locked into a horribly illogical, obstinate and cruel horror of futility.  All based upon a lie.  That their ‘god’ compels them to either convert the world to Islam…or if that doesn’t work, blow everything up.  That they are committed to an eternal jihad to kill any who won’t accept and adopt their strict religious doctrine — man, woman or child.  That they are in fact rewarded by murdering those innocents with an eternal bliss of paradise and fornicating with virgins.

And they call us the Great Satan.

Okay…let me back up.  With all due (and undue) respect…and I know that is a broad disclaimer, but I don’t know how else to couch it.  I’m speaking now to only violence-prone, extremist Islamofascist Muslims.  I can understand that your feelings were hurt five thousand years ago when the Jews started jumping around declaring that God said that they were the ‘chosen people’.  I understand you may have felt a bit…what, slighted?  I know I would have.  “What do you mean you guys are the ‘chosen ones’?   Chosen by whom?  God!?  You kiddin’ me?  Oh, yeah, and what – we’re chopped liver??  What kind of sh*t is that??”

But have you considered…”chosen…for what, exactly?”   If you look at their history, it becomes clear that they haven’t always been chosen for good things.  There was that slavery thing in Egypt.  That worked out all right, eventually.  Moses rocked.  And the Promised Land was cool.  But what about that exile into Babylon?  That could not have been pleasant.   Then the struggle with the Romans?   There was no United Nations to complain to.  And the ACLU could get no traction, though I’m sure they tried.  And then, bummer of bummers, Jesus comes into popularity…gives the Jewish leaders a bunch of lip…rampages through the temple like Axel Rose trashing the penthouse suite at the Hollywood Hyatt…and the Jews get the rap for the death of Christ!   And everybody who was there said it was the Romans who killed him!    (If only we had a Zapruder film back then, we could put that controversy to rest, huh?)  Then…the prosecution in Russia…the pogroms…and finally…Europe under Nazi rule.  The Final Solution.  

So…you have to ask yourself…  They’re the Chosen People…but chosen for what?

Still…to be ‘chosen’ is to be special.  So, by extrapolation, to not be chosen…is to not be special.  That’s gotta sting.

Well… I feel your pain.  It’s got to be a wee bit aggravating to develop your culture side by side with a whole race that touts at every turn its own unique favor with the deity.  An exclusive club, a gold-key membership and back stage pass to the All-Mighty.  The Jews as Rock Stars.  And that other offshoot from Abraham…the Muslim root?  “Uh…sorry, guys, you can be the roadies.  Grab those Marshall cabinets, will ya, pal?   We gotta get going with the sound check.”

I don’t know.  Maybe if that Cain dude hadn’t killed his brother Abel, things might have turned out differently?  

I’m a Christian, I’m not one of the ‘chosen people’ either.  You don’t see me tearing my clothes, ripping out my hair or swinging my scimitar at the closest synagogue.  I’m easy, I say, “Hey, they’re the Chosen People?  Good on them, I hope it works out.”   But listen, Ahmed – and I say this with patience, tolerance, and respect.  It’s been five thousand years…so I suggest that each of you who are still smoldering with this multi-generational hatred for all things Jewish…sit down now and pour yourself a nice hot cup of Lighten-the-F*#k-Up.

Time to let it go.

I’m reminded of that TV show a few years back, “Ally McBeal”.  Gregg Grumann played a lawyer they called, ‘Fish’.   Fish had the amazing proclivity for screwing over everyone he came in contact with; effortlessly, sometimes unwittingly, but screwing them over nonetheless, just as a matter of course.   Upon discovering any of his innumerable offenses, he would instantly relieve himself of blame, responsibility and penalty with a simple, tossed-away word:  “Bygones!“   (As in, ‘Let bygones be bygones’.)  (As in Yo!  Fahgettaboudit!)

Abdul… Ahmed… Sal-hakim Ib bin Sal-har Alimi-Omar… all together now:   “Bygones!”

Yes, there have been thousands of years of war.  Yes, there were plenty of atrocities perpetrated in the name of “God-wills-it” over the millennia.  And as a Christian infidel, I’ll cop to some various offenses those Crusade fellows may have been involved in as they were busy ‘evangelizing’ the Muslim world, Bible in one hand, sword in the other.  (That Richard the Lionheart was reportedly a real irascible sort, and not much prone to mediated negotiation.)

But you tyrants and extremists under the star and crescent (peace-loving Muslims I have no quarrel with… although, in light of your religion having been somewhat hijacked by a vocal and violent extremist minority, you do yourselves and the world a great disservice in not speaking up against Wahhabbi extremism – and your silence is deafening!”)... it’s you guys who have been doing the lion’s share of unprovoked bloodletting in recent memory.  If you guys were truly interested in peace you would acknowledge at least Israel’s right to exist.  You wouldn’t have turned down Ehud Barak’s numerous peace proposals and concessions to Arafat.  You wouldn’t have stoked the so-called Lebanese civil war (if unprovoked slaughter of untold Lebanese Christians can be called civil war).  And if you were truly a people of peace…you would devote yourselves and your culture to building up you society and your people.  You would engage in enterprises that develop technology and help to feed your people and provide a better, more peaceful existence.  You would work in harmony with your Jewish neighbors, exchanging products, services and ideas for furthering the happy, peaceful progress you espouse openly in English to the western press; and then just as quickly, deny and disparage in your own language to your own people.  Like…”Now that we’re alone, and have fooled those suckers, now I can tell you what we really are all about.”  (Little things like…driving Israel into the Mediterranean.)

When you tell us you’re all about peace….is it any wonder we don’t believe you?

As of this writing there is a great tremor shaking earth.  The winds of revolution are stirring in Tehran, following claims of a fraudulent election that would restore the crazed despot Ahmadinejad to another oppressive term.  The people of Iran are filling the streets, rising up for freedom.  They are out in force, risking their lives, opposing the tyrant.

We Americans, we who love liberty, are being stirred to our core in empathy and encouragement.  We cheer from the sideline, much as when we see film of a baby seal swimming desperately for its life, trying to escape the jaws of a killer whale.  We urge him on, and against overwhelming odds, the tiny seal somehow escapes to freedom…and life. 

We are stirred by the scenes in Iran because we remember our own impossible beginnings.  Going up against the power and might of the British Empire, the one lone superpower of its day.  With so much allied against us, the birth of our Republic should never have happened.  And yet it did.  The human will, that sacrosanct human drive, the will to be free…overcame all the threat, fear, danger… and sacrifice.

These are pivotal, indeed, critical times for our nation and for our world.  To what extent will we support that drive for freedom, in Iran, and in other sections of the world?

And, in light of recent movements by the Obama administration and Congress to the contrary…to what extent will we support the drive for liberty in our own nation? 

With the seemingly endless abundance of practiced and prodigious bullsh*t hurled about in the media, some from the commentators, some from our leaders — we often lose sight of certain self-evident truths, not the least of which is this:  there is right…and there is wrong. 

The line in the sand has been drawn. 

It was drawn while we were downloading from Itunes, it was drawn while bugs were eaten raw on SURVIROR, it was drawn while the Lakers were surmounting their drive for the championship.  And despite great pop-cultural obfuscation to the contrary, the line is quite clear. 

Right, wrong.  Good, evil. 

No one any longer has the luxury of sitting back and letting ‘those others’ make the decisions, call the shots, and determine what sort of world we are to live in.  To make no decision is to make a decision; to the detriment of society.  You are on one side…or you’re on the other.   And ignorance, in the day years ago of crude technology and limited information sources, may have been an excuse.  But no more.  The information age is upon us, and to abdicate to laziness or outright arrogant refusal to self-educate, is to join the legions who foment darkness and encourage intellectual and spiritual bondage. 

So which side are you on?

Are you on the side of the Oppressors?  On the side of those who would control you, regulate you, tax you, fine you, imprison you, or kill you if you don’t adhere to their philosophy of life or rules of religion?  Or are you on the side of the Freemen?   On the side of free individuals engaged in liberty and the free pursuit of happiness, unfettered by excessive government restriction, and guided by a code of honor and responsibility and devotion to goodness, strength, love and liberty?

The time for sitting on the sidelines has passed – for all of us.  That tapping you feel right now, deep inside…   It is the urgings of your soul.  That tapping shall soon be a great pounding drum beat.  It is the universal urging to be free, of which every human being is born.  To deny it is to submit to enslavement.  To answer it is to stand up and take your rightful place among a free people of destiny. 

Terrorists and tyrants can have hell – they earned it. 

Let those of us who cherish freedom and honor life stand now here, on this earth, and fight for freedom.  And let us fight as though our future, our families, our very lives depended on it.  Because, friend…it surely does.

Adam has an amazing vocal range and a falsetto so rich in quality that it is imperceptibly different from his chest voice.  His incredible ability to control his vocals enables him to hold his high notes seemingly forever.  His versatility is unmatched in “Idol” history.  With the arguable exception of country music (his rendition of “Ring of Fire” received strong emotional reactions both pro and con, as it was more like Johnny Cash doing Goth music with Middle Eastern undertones), Adam excels in every genre of music.  He sings soulful ballads to pop to heavy metal and glam rock, all with ease, style, and pitch-perfect tone.

Week in and week out, other “Idol” contestants appeared on stage in sneakers and T-shirts without sets or lighting design, all of which are in the contestants’ control.  But enter Adam, and the show began!  One could criticize his attire (and did!) but every week Adam came with an outfit, sets, lighting, and moves that fit his song choice and made his performances both unpredictable and more entertaining.  He’s not just a singer; he’s the whole performance package.

Unfortunately, talent has not always been the focus of commentary on Adam.  Rumor has it that some on the Christian-right refused to vote for Adam because of his ambiguous sexual orientation.  Explicit photos of him making out with other men, attending the Burning Man (an annual event in Nevada which constitutes an experiment in community, radical self-expression, and radical self-reliance), and occasionally dressing in drag, detracted from his deserved praise.  Supposedly, Kris Allen’s church pastor urged “all believers” to vote for Kris (though Kris emphatically objected to votes based on religion).  Additionally, “Idol” contestant Danny Gokey, who touted his Christianity, had a similar performance style to Kris’.  His devout following likely swung in favor of Kris once Danny was booted off the show.

Many deemed it unpalatable if not morally wrong to deny Adam his hard earned votes based on sexual orientation.  This should have no place in the “Idol” competition.  As Kris explained, this was supposed to be a competition about singing, not a vote for the presidency.

Yet, as soon as the winner was announced and the finale was over, the left-wing media started bashing Adam for not being gay enough.  Adam has admitted that the explicit photos were of him, and he has not been at all shy about anything including his sexuality. (To date, interviewers have beaten around the bush and have not put the “gay question” to him directly.)  But neither has Adam made his sexuality a political issue…at least thus far.  Still, the photos and Adam’s behavior, which are about as “out” as can be, still leave some dissatisfied.  As is often the case with leftists, words are more important than actions, and one isn’t truly “out” until he mouths the words “I’m gay.”  Adam hasn’t done this and thus will suffer the wrath of leftist activists.

No sooner had he walked off the stage than criticism has befallen him — not for his performances, which were controversial but fair game, but for his alleged “silence” on his sexuality.  Indeed, Entertainment Weekly Online dedicated four whole pages to chastising him for failing to announce his orientation.  But, making one’s private life fodder for public consumption seems to be something the gay community does often.  In the recently released film “Outrage,” the filmmaker assumed that if he outed gay Republicans, they would change their votes on gay marriage.  The presumption seems to be that gay marriage is the world’s most pressing issue, and everyone who is gay should prioritize this about all else.  To hell with national security, the arts, or whatever else one might be interested in.

Adam has acknowledged feeling pressure from some quarters to use his sexuality and “alternativeness” to influence how America views related social issues.  Contrary to helping those in the gay community, they are doing Adam and the gay community a disservice.  By pressuring Adam to act differently than his straight counterparts, they separate him out rather than allow him to integrate and be accepted as equal.  They are also denying him the right to define himself as he wants to be defined and decide for himself how his talents will be used.

It is unlikely that at age three when Adam starting singing around the house, or at age ten when he first began musical theater, that his goal was to achieve success as a vehicle for gay rights activism.  Why does everyone who is gay have to represent a political cause?  Why can’t Adam just be a singer and an entertainer like other artists?  Both those who withheld votes because Adam’s gay and those who are bashing him for not being gay enough, insist on defining Adam by his sexual orientation.  But Adam clearly defines himself by his music.

Politics aside, it is apparent that Adam is not going to be a flash-in-the-pan like previous “Idol” contenders.  Adam was the only reason to watch the cheesy show this season.  My prediction is that he is destined to be a national star, if not international.  Offers are already pouring in, and there’s talk of him touring with Queen, being courted for Broadway leads, and making his own CD’s.  Refusing to be boxed into a specific genre as most record labels demand, his first album promises to range from pop to rock to funk with innovative electronics.  Additionally, he hopes to do corollary theatrical performances.  His goal is to fill an artistic niche of theatrical pop music which is currently female-dominated on the scene, and largely devoid of male artists.  It is Adam’s artistic expression and personal style that make him notable, not his sexual orientation.  If he does have a political message, it’s one of personal empowerment for anyone who might not fit the mold…sexuality aside.

Those making social criticism of Adam based on his sexuality — one way or the other — should apologize.  I myself owe him an apology for using his orientation in the title of this article.  However, I doubt if he cares much about any of this.  Adam is all about the music, and I’m sure he’s too busy singing to pay this any mind.

I meet them all the time: at auditions, on film sets, at parties. Generally speaking they are rather reserved. We engage in what I call the right-wing tango for a bit, dancing around each other giving vague answers to questions until one of us finally gives the secret password. Following the discovery of shared ideology there is usually a great deal of back slapping and genuine excitement at finding a brother in arms.

Part of this reserve is innate. By nature conservatives are generally not given to loud talking and frenetic displays. After all one of the hallmarks of conservatism is a desire to live ones life the best way one can without interference or hindrance from our neighbors or the state. Miki Grant may not have intended to, but in her 1972 Broadway musical “Don’t Bother Me I Can’t cope” she gave voice to the conservative mantra when she wrote, “all I need is less fat back, more greenback and YOU [government] off my back!”

There is, however, a part of this reserve that is learned behavior and has become necessary because the Hollywood left, so tolerant and loving of diversity that they have embraced cop killers, child molesters and Marxist dictators are not so tolerant of conservatives.

A brief conversation with any show business industry conservative is to be regaled with stories of lost friendships and business associations and being professionally ostracized — scripts that go unread and phone calls that go unreturned; Liberal berating for so much as hinting at conservative sympathies and leftist inattentiveness to courtesy and decorum. I can personally attest to having experienced all of the above at some time or another, which makes me about average among Hollywood conservatives.

To be certain there are those in this town that couldn’t care less what others think, have the courage of their convictions and let their thoughts be known on any number of issues. Some of these people are well-known in the industry, with money and power; others are, well, struggling to make ends meet. There are also many others with fame fortune and influence that are content to stay in the shadows doing the dance too fearful to utter a sound.

I understand that most folks have little interest in activism, but all of us desire (and ought to demand) the freedom to be comfortable in the expression of our quite reasonable attitudes about our country and our faith. That is true even among the glitter and glamour of Hollywood. The question then for Conservatives in this town is can we afford to remain silent in the face of repugnant liberalism? There is a conversation taking place about the direction this nation is going to take: are we going to abandon free market capitalism for European soft socialism? Are we going to sacrifice our freedoms in order to save the planet from carbon dioxide? Are we going to banish Christianity from our public square? Are we going to tear down all of our social institutions and rebuild them with post modernist cement? These questions and others are confronting our republic and we in Hollywood occupy a unique platform from which to influence the discussion.

It isn’t necessary for everyone to pick up a placard and take to the streets. It is however, essential that we speak up if only to defend our good names from accusations of bigotry and ignorance. The excuse for standing silently by while the left runs roughshod over our culture is wearing thin ESPECIALLY when that excuse comes from those fortunate enough to be enjoying the generous fruits borne of labor in the Hollywood vineyards. What is there to fear? Unemployment? Unpopularity? Most of us familiar with the daily grind of show business life are used to periods of unemployment; unemployment is part of the job as is the sound of crickets clapping.

It is worth remembering that the declaration of Independence -the keystone document of our republic-was a very public document. The signatories were mostly wealthy men that pledged their “lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor.” John Hancock is rumored to have said that he was signing his name in large script so King George could read it without putting on his spectacles. Are the convictions of the Hollywood beau monde so easily purchased? Has sacred honor suddenly become cheap?

There is strength in numbers and there are many more of us in Hollywood than most imagine or the left ever feared.

And for whatever it’s worth consider my name writ large. Far be it from me to demand that anyone in this town be forced to put on spectacles.

Joseph C. Phillips is the author of “He Talk Like a White Boy” available wherever books are sold.