Adam Lambert & Out Magazine: The Beef

Apparently I've been so busy with my own issues that I missed the whole bicker-fest between OUT magazine's Editor in Chief Aaron Hicklin and Adam Lambert. So for those who missed it as well, allow me to recap: OUT had a bone to pick with Adam and his team for various demands and cautions they placed on the magazine for Lambert's OUT 100 interview...demands made so that the entertainer would not come out looking "too gay". You know...as in 'gay-gay'. Here's the beef.

Lambert shot back via Twitter, saying: "Dear Aaron, it's def not that deep. Chill! Guess ya gotta get attention for the magazine. U too are at the mercy of the marketing machine. Until we have a meaningful conversation, perhaps you should refrain from projecting your publications' agenda onto my career."

In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Lambert continued by saying that the magazine and Hicklin "really crossed a line."

And then, with "no desire to prolong this discussion," OUT had one final(?) rebuttal.

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"We've no desire to prolong this discussion, but whether or not we crossed a line in throwing light on the conversations that preceded Adam's cover shoot and interview, we're glad to see such a robust and spirited debate. We admire Adam's achievements, which is why we honored him as Breakout Star of the Year, but using the editor's letter to discuss the old school tactics in the way he ismarketed and promoted was important for an annual issue that celebrates gay progress--the Out 100.

"In his interview with Entertainment Weekly, Adam says, 'the letter that Aaron wrote is holding us back. Because it's recognizing the big difference as opposed to letting us all ignore preference and just be people.' We're glad he's sees sexuality that way. So do we--it's why we were so dismayed by his management whose actions reinforced those distinctions rather than erased them. This was never about turning Adam into a political figure, or about whether he should have been on the cover of Rolling Stone first (of course he should-what pop star wouldn't want that?).

"It was, however, about challenging the double standard applied to gay and mainstream media, or to use Adam's words, moving past those distinctions between gay and straight. As this controversy erupted a young gay man was murdered in Puerto Rico precisely by the kind of people who refuse to see past sexual preferences, and while we know that such hatred offends Adam as much as it does us, we hope his fans will consider the relationship between slurs such as 'too gay' and the second class status-yes, a form of apartheid-of gays in America. Adam is not required to address this cruel and lethal discrepancy--he does enough by being himself--but was it too much for us to expect his managers, with or without Adam's consent, to treat Out with the same respect they would treat mainstream media?"