The Double Standard is Alive and Well

    Rewind to a week ago Sunday. On one of the music award shows celebrating artists not aimed at my demographics, one Adam Lambert kissed his keyboard player on the lips. The furor took days to die down. Contrast that with the open-mouthed kiss Britney Spears exchanged with Madonna some years ago. Controversial, yes, but neither were bumped from later TV appearances because of it.  Maybe I'm a bit prudish underneath it all, but I find public kissing like that, whether same sex, different sex, or interspecies in bad taste.

    Move onto this last Friday. Golf pro Tiger Woods went flying out of his driveway at 2:30 a.m. and backed into a tree and a fire hydrant. Paramedics took him to the hospital. His wife was seen breaking windows out of his SUV, ostensibly to help him escape. He hasn't given a statement to the police. Word came down the TMZ pike today that investigators want to obtain records of his ER treatment to see if his injuries were consistent with physical assault or with an accident. A 30 mph jaunt down a driveway shouldn't have done that much damage. Rumors of an alleged fling and alleged confrontation by his wife have sparked a lot of speculation that the ensuing argument became physical. 

   Compare that with the case of Chris Brown and Rhianna from earlier this year.  Mr. Brown has been rightly vilified for his assault on Rhianna. Even though the Woods case is embryonic, the reaction over the possible assault on Tiger by his wife Elin has been more like a reaction to joke on the old "Tonight" show.

    Only it's not funny. 

    Violence has no place in a home, especially with small children, and no place in our hearts, whoever the perpetrator may be. 

     Allowing loveless expressions of sex, regardless of orientation, to be portrayed as the norm, should have no place in our media rooms, either.