I offer, exclusively to Out In Hollywood readers, part two of my current current cover story in The Advocate: "America's Big Gay Closet." Part three will be posted in a week so if you cannot wait, by all mean go out and buy the magazine! It's the Music Issue has is filled with great stuff including interviews with Pete Wentz and Cyndi Lauper.

Click HERE To read Greg's American Idol Exclusive Pt 1...

here is more of the cover story...

[Magdaleno] Olmos claims in the lawsuit that [Season Four finalist Mario] "Vazquez stared lasciviously, smiled lasciviously...and on one occasion followed him into a bathroom...knocked on the door of the plaintiff's stall and made eye contact through the space in the stall door." Vazquez then allegedly "started to rub his genitals over his pants. Attempting to leave the bathroom, Olmos opened the door of the stall and saw Vasquez standing in front of him with his pants down."
Olmos alleges Vazquez pushed him "further into the stall and continued masturbating with one hand and trying to pull down Olmos' pants with another hand," and that Vazquez touched his "chest and stomach underneath his shirt" and his genitals. Vazquez then allegedly "attempted to unzip" Olmos's pants and asked "if he wanted oral sex."
Olmos claims he was let go from the show a few months later for reporting the alleged incident to a superior. He is suing Vazquez, Fremantle and Fox Entertainment. Olmos’ attorney, Matt Matern, has stated publicly that he does not
believe Vazquez’s departure from American Idol was voluntary and has indicated that the lawsuit was filed nearly two years after his client’s firing because settlement talks with the show, its production company Fremantle and FOX broke down.
Vazquez’s representatives did not respond to efforts to reach them for this article and had not made any public statements about the lawsuit as of press time. Fox declined to comment stating it is company policy to not speak about pending litigation.
Sexual harassment scandal aside, Hollywood Reporter television columnist Ray Richmond thinks the show is probably doesn’t need toplay it too safe when it comes to gay contestants.
"I have to believe the producers are not putting forth any mandate to hide your gayness," Richmond says. "It actually would be a nice subplot: the gay singer versus the straight singer."
But is middle America ready for sappy video montages to a love of the same gender?
Former NSYNC boy band member Lance Bass thinks so.
Bass, who came out of the closet amid much fanfare last summer, says he certainly understands the hesitancy on the part of a young gay singer trying to make it, but urges them to "come clean!"
"The world has completely changed since I was in the band," Bass says. "There are obviously contestants on the show right now who are gay. But it’s a scary thing because when you are a new artist, you don’t know if it will hurt you."
Out singer Jacob Miller, who performs in the band Nemesis with twin gay brother Joshua, co-produced the season four American Idol album. Without naming names, confirms that several of the top 24 contestants that season were gay.
"It was always cool. No one acted strangely about it," he says. "I don’t think they are discouraged from being out, I think kids, when they start, are afraid it could sabotage things."
Miller’s own journey to recording an album and coming out to his family and the rest of the world was chronicled in the reality series Nemesis Rising on Logo last year.
Helton wonders if now, in season six, if some of the male finalists are making less of an effort to butch it up so to speak: "It’s funny watching this season. There are more queens on that show than I have ever seen before. I don’t think people are trying to hide their femininity. But I definitely think there is an unspoken thing to try and keep it under wraps for ratings."
Not making it into the top 24 this season was openly gay Tim Lowe, a 28-year-old ex-British boy-band member (North and South) who was actually at the center of several controversies including that he was already too successful and well-connected to compete on the show fairly. He advanced to the top 40 during the audition process but was cut when the group was further narrowed down . Many were surprised since Lowe’s version of Always and Forever had really wowed the judges.
"I still don’t know the reason why I didn’t make the top 24," Lowe says. "I was absolutely gutted. It took me weeks to get over it. It was so deflating. I felt I was easily good enough to be in the top 12 guys."
Once he was in the top 40, it became public knowledge that Lowe had posed nude (with his private parts strategically covered) for a British magazine and while a student at Harvard University, appeared to out himself in a 2005 interview with the Crimson: "Harvard allows me to dress however I want, wear my hair however I want, sleep with whomever I want." But if he had made it onto the show, Lowe says he was prepared to play down his sexuality.
"I didn’t really want to make that an issue," he says. "I didn’t want to be known as the gay contestant. I was discreet and would have happily carried on in the competition and had my sexuality not been an issue. You need to appeal to a broad market but, unfortunately, in America that doesn’t include being gay."
Damon Romine, media director of the Gay and Lesbian Association Against Defamation, is hopeful that it is only a matter of time before a gay performer feels comfortable competing on the show openly.
"As more and more gay and lesbian performers live their lives openly and honestly, we look forward to a time when there is also an out contestant on American Idol," he says. "An out contestant would provide inspiration to millions of LGBT viewers who can see firsthand the power of living an open and authentic life."
The gay issue in Idol seems to be largely an American one. In the UK, Pop Idol winner Will Young came out after the release of his first single in 2002 which sold more than a million copies within a week.
The sixth season of American Idol is unfolding as some well-known international male singers either came out or were outed. Australian pop star, Anthony Callea was outed by a radio talk show host in early March but had denied gay rumors while he was an Australian Idol contestant. Mexican singer and soap star Christian Chavez, a member of the band RBD, publicly acknowledged his sexuality a few days earlier after photos of him exchanging vows and rings with another man in Canada in 2005 surfaced.
"It seems to be a thing with American TV," observes Andy Bell, an openly gay member of the British pop band Erasure. "Our very first Pop Idol [winner] came out. I think it’s about time someone did [come out]. I’d love to see it happen. The more the merrier."

- to be continued -