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Poor Tom Cruise. There's no course of action he could take in the ongoing saga over his real or perceived sexual orientation without offending someone, somewhere.

Now there are gay activists who are angry that he's filed a multi-million dollar lawsuit against gay porn star Kyle Bradford, who's alleged to have told two magazines that he had an affair with Cruise. (Bradford's real name is supposedly Chad Slater, but I'm suspicious since that sounds like another name he pulled off the back of a Falcon film.)

Bradford denies it all, maintaining that he never even gave the interviews in question. Cruise and his lawyers are pushing ahead nonetheless, saying ``Bradford's defamatory statements are of a kind calculated to cause Cruise harm in his profession and ability to earn. Because Cruise is a motion picture actor, he is dependent upon worldwide public acceptance of his films. Losing the respect and enthusiasm of a substantial segment of the movie going public would cost
Cruise very substantial sums."

Cruise, through his lawyers, take pains to point out that ``while [Cruise] believes in the right of others to follow their own sexual preference, vast numbers of the public throughout the world do not share that view and, believing that he had a homosexual affair and did so during his marriage, they will be less inclined to patronize Cruise's films, particularly since he tends to play parts calling for heterosexual romance and action adventure. Cruise has suffered and will suffer personal and professional harm."

All of this has certain activists in the gay and lesbian community in a huff, since filing a lawsuit for being called gay has set off their hypersensitive homophobia alarms. ``I don't care if Tom [Cruise] is straight, gay, bi or has sex with female poodles, but I do care when he makes out that being identified as gay is libelous and akin to being called a murderer or drug addict," wrote longtime activist Nicole Ramirez Murray in a June 14 op-ed piece in San Diego's Gay and Lesbian Times. ``Tom Cruise's lawsuits are an insult to all gays and lesbians, and we should stop seeing his movies. Yes, let's boycott Tom Cruise!"

Boycott? Why? Cruise seems like a decent sort of fellow by Hollywood standards as long as you ignore that Scientology nonsense. And I don't see anything in any of his or his lawyers' statements that even comes close to comparing homosexuality with homicide or drug addiction.

As for whether Cruise is gay, I don't believe it. To paraphrase Roseanne: What does he do, kill all his tricks and boyfriends when he's done with them? (To see an excellent take on this question, see Bruce Vilanch's recent column in The Advocate.)

But, of course, the Cruise-is-gay rumors have circulated for years -- long enough that some people believed them without basis and apparently thought they could get away with making some money selling their bogus stories about a man they probably thought would never fight back because he's jammed so far in the closet.

But there is a deeper issue here aside from Cruise's sexuality: Why are so many so emotionally invested in whether a complete stranger -- he's only a movie actor -- is gay? And this goes for Rosie and all the rest, too. Yeah, they all have admirable qualities, but so do a lot of people who aren't famous and are doing a helluva lot more to make the world a better place. And those non-famous people say every day simply to the world, ``Yeah, I'm gay. So?"

But in American society fame and wealth are seen as indicators of the worth of those who have them. No surprise then that so many have a need to see famous tooth-capped plastic people come out of the closet. ``Jeez, if a famous rich guy is gay, then it must be OK for me to be gay too!"

It's all so sick and twisted, especially when the hounding continues after the famous alleged homosexual denies being gay. What a role model! A gay who is gay but can't (or won't) admit it!

We've got a sick hunger in this society, and it's being fed by an incessant media stream of celebrity worship disguised as news -- that is, when the entertainment industry bothers to attempt to disguise its PR juggernaut at all.

That so many are interested in Tom Cruise's sexual orientation suggests that industry has won.