Of course, Adam wanted to win. The question was, when was the situation finally relaxed and distant enough that he could just say that out loud, instead of giving a good marketing speech. That was the only question that was open, imo, and that it took 5 years shows how sensitive the topic was for the longest time.
Given that this gets repeated again today, let's just make sure we are clear.
There are three elements that came together to make Kris the winner, not only one.
a) Only people from the south have a chance to win in this competition
b) Christian / anti-gay vote, Danny voters voted for Kris
c) The special efforts / shennanigans in Conray, AK to mass vote
The debate, on how much each of these three contributed, can be held endlessly and uselessly. Furthermore, the motivation for c) is actually a result of both a) and b) and therefore only a separate event, as the extent of these votes raised some questions. But ultimately we will never know these details, how things broke down.
Here are the winner and runner-up statistics, based on Geography, for the first 8 seasons, to show you, how dominant this element a) truly is. Basically, other than
pat H, j/k, it is pretty much safe to say, that the East and West coast does not spend Tue and We evenings in front of telephones and text messaging devices. It is the fly-over country that does. Here is the list:
1. Kelly C (Texas), Justin G. (Georgia)
2. Ruben S. (Alabama), Clay A. (North Carolina)
3. Fantasia B. (North Carolina)
, Diana DeGarmo (Georgia)
4. Carrie U. (Oklahoma), Bo B. (Alabama)
5. Taylor H. (Alabama), Katherine McP. (California)
6. Jordin S. (Arizona), Blake L. (Washington)
7. David C. (Texas), David A. (Utah)
8. Kris A. (Arkansas), Adam L. (California)
======> Season 1-8: All winners + 4 runner-ups were from the south. Nobody from NE, 3 from West. It is not a competition where vocals decide. It is a silly TV show that people with no theater, concerts and music venues in town, turn to for cultural entertainment. That does not make it bad, just makes it what it is.
That Adam made it as far as he did, is purely on talent, because he had the deck stacked against him. While it will forever go down as an example for the absurdity of the American value debate, that there actually were pastors preaching from their pulpits that family values of this country were riding on the elimination of Adam from the idol crown, the proof that the resulting behavior reached critical mass, is quite questionable.
If you want to discuss the discrimination for gays in music biz, or the fact that gays have to be 3 times as good as anyone else to make it, the following facts are far more noteworthy:
===> Adam was well known to the various major labels, prior to idol, but he could not get himself signed. The going assumption was, that an out gay singer cannot gather a fan-base outside of gay-only circles.
=====> Adam was the first openly gay artist to be signed to a major label (that makes it 80 years of discrimination!)
======> Adam was the first openly gay artist with a # 1 album
=======> (can the fact checkers here please help me out, because I am not totally sure, but as far as I know): The first top40 single by an openly gay artist, is a bridge that still needs to be crossed.
It was accepted practice until 2009, that artists had to be closeted to be signed. It was also accepted practice until 2011, that orientation was not talked about on reality TV shows.
When people today ask, why did Adam not come out during idol, then they don't remember how things were handled. Adam did write it on his application, it was common practice for idol to not talk about it. And Adam is right, that if he had said something (however that technically would have happened, given that he could not conduct interviews), but if he had said something, it would have totally overshadowed the singing.
We have come a long way in 5 years, that now people cannot remember anymore a time, when things were different than today, where many artists choose to mention it (not all). But that is the reality of our transitional times, that we all are witness of, and that Adam is representative of.
But, when I read that he did not win idol, because of gay haters, I am always a bit taken aback. We don't really know that.
His biggest problem may have been that he was not from the south.
ETA: Btw, for seasons 9-13, the dominance of the south continues. The south won all seasons, except 9, which was a midwest-match (Illinios vs Ohio). Still fly-over country. And yes, I ignored a few odd-ball birth places, like Indiana for Adam, or Frankfurt, DE for Ruben and rather listed, where they grew up and could hope for home-town support. Overall, Idol is a Carolina, Georgia, Alabama TV show, when it comes to winners.
