'American Idol' needs to open the closet door

During Season 1, the Fox network demanded that Top 10 finalist Jim Verraros remove "gay-friendly" comments from his page on an "Idol"-sponsored website. Season 2 near-winner Clay Aiken waited a whopping five years to come out. Last year, David Hernandez was quickly eliminated after his past as a stripper in a gay club came to light. (There's apparently never been a lesbian contestant, though several have fought off rumors, starting with Season 1 winner Kelly Clarkson.)

Hidden sexualities on "Idol" always must be viewed in light of the general discomfort about sex that dominates the show. It's fairly ridiculous that a program designed to create the next major pop star barely lets its participants show leg or sing racy lyrics, especially when the charts are dominated by songs like Flo Rida's "Right Round" and Lil Wayne's "Lollipop" -- both fairly blatant celebrations of promiscuity and oral sex.

Within a painfully immodest pop universe, "Idol" stands as a champion of family values -- and of the endangered naughty giggle. The banter between the show's male regulars, especially host Ryan Seacrest and judge Simon Cowell, is steeped in an outdated frat-boy homophobia that is never funny and often deeply uncomfortable. You'd think that the formal protest lodged in 2006 by the gay-rights organization GLAAD would have put a stop to such antics, but they've just kept coming.

"Idol's" closet contains much more than sexuality, though. It includes language differences, religious affiliation and its contestants' complex family lives. The daring Lambert might break down the wall of homophobia this season, but it's just as likely one of the show's several Christian worship leaders, including Lambert's main male rival Danny Gokey, will push the producers to let fundamentalist Christianity out of the box in which it's not very well contained.

Or perhaps this year's outlier will be Jorge Nunez, making a mark for the Latino community by insisting on singing songs in Spanish. Then there's Scott MacIntyre, who is legally blind, and who might keep forcing the producers to adjust to a front-runner with an obvious disability.

Issues of race pose new challenges this year. Nunez's dark skin and curly hair mark him as different from the Enrique Iglesias-style Latin crossover acts more common in Hollywood. (There's more than one reason salsa master Marc Anthony, a black-haired, full-blooded Puerto Rican who has faced crossover issues himself, wept when Nunez got through.)