I am not the kind of person who watches the AMA awards. Television and I are in a hate phase of a love-hate relationship. That said, after every top ten radio station was going on and on about Lambert’s video, I had to open the computer and check it out.

My conclusion: If Lambert hadn’t kissed that boy, no one would care about that performance.

When I was in college, I went to see a Brittany Spears concert where she performed “I’m a Slave For You.” Amidst all the fire throwers and nakedness, there were a ton of dancers in leather outfits, some of whom, I’m sure, were on leashes. And the crotch rub? Puhlease. I’ve seen Madonna do that a hundred times.

The point is that oversexualized performances are the norm. Maybe television has a slightly higher standard, but if you look at the video cuts, the moment the camera really decides to pan out and get rid of this crazy guy, is right after he kisses the guitar player.

Lambert is going to continue to push the envelope, I have do doubt. But I worry about how live television will react to the mounting backlash. Complaints are in the thousands now, but could become more worrisome if the numbers grow.

That said, Lambert got one more viewer to check out the AMA. So that’s a good thing, right? (NBC, are you out there?)

“I am gay, George,” the unidentified man said during a news conference at the Venice Film Festival Tuesday. “Take me, choose me George, please. May I kiss you, just once?”

Clooney was unflappable in responding with a smile, “It’s hard when you take a big chance and it doesn’t really work.”

Clooney was attending the Venice Film Festival to present his new movie “The Men Who Stare at Goats,” directed by Grant Heslov. The film was screened Tuesday out of competition.

The actor arrived in Venice with Italian actress Elisabetta Canalis.

Since then, we have made an art of the protest. We carried Silence = Death signs during the AIDS crisis. We ate fire with the Lesbian Avengers. We stormed the country because we were furious about the passage of Prop 8. And we kissed our partners in Salt Lake City and around the country to protest the Mormon handling of gay PDA.

Today, the Freakonomics blog at the NY Times has a circle of experts pontificating on whether protests work.

Their answer?

It depends.

Chester Crocker, professor at Georgetown’s Walsh School of Foreign Service says that protests matter, but they might wind up having a negative affect. They can undermine governments, apply pressure on policymakers, and get media attention.

Crocker says that some of the most effective protests happen in democracies that already recognize civil rights and political liberties and when they’re “led by skillful political activists and organizers who understand how to manipulate public opinion and targeted at concrete rather than abstract ideological goals.”

On the other hand, street power, he says, can get out of hand and subvert the democratic process.

Political Science professor David S. Meyer adds:

“A protest is a signal about who you are, what you want, and what else you might do. . . . Demonstrators can stiffen the spine of would-be allies in government, suggesting there might be advantages in pressing for new positions on climate change, abortion, or gay marriage. No savvy politician will admit to changing direction in response to demonstrations in the street, but of course, it happens all the time.

When activists make progress, it’s always less than what they want.  . . . People don’t generally take to the streets looking for smaller reforms, but often it’s only by asking for more that they get anything.”

What none of the experts say is what we implicitly know: protests help make a movement out of outrage; they get people involved in the political process; they show people that their voice, their anger, can make a difference. They are outlets for creativity. They educate. They help make a community out of a group of people who may have nothing but their race, gender or sexual orientation in common.

Protests help change policy and change minds, yes; but they also teach the protesters how to organize, how to lobby, how to get media attention. In short, they help create a class of people to lift the whole group up.

So whether or not protests seem to work right away; whether or not the protest itself seems misguided; we need to keep protesting until all our rights are won.

“You must not desist from protesting because you don’t see an immediate result,” said Howard Zinn, professor emeritus at Boston University. “What immediately looks like a failure may turn out to be a success.”