I wonder if this is about celebrities or their followers? There are way too many people who basically don't have a life. Look at the popularity of the National Enquirer. People very often live lives through others. Most of these celebrities are just like us and the loss of privacy often affects them profoundly. What is the expression about power corrupting? This can apply to anyone even us.

I remember walking with a friend through a swanky neighborhood in Seattle years ago. We passed by a house when a man stepped out. His wife told him no to forget the milk at the store. He then turned and walked toward us. My friend got excited and asked me do you know who that is (he was Gerard Swartz - the famous conductor of the Seattle symphony)? He was excited and wanted to get his autograph. I held him back and said leave him alone. The man walked past us and we simply said hi but I could see he was nervous and probably thought, oh no, more pesky fans.

Actors & Actresses = fake.

I think that celebrities (especially Hollywood-types, but many pro athletes as well) get a 'free pass' because they seem so 'larger than life' to the rest of us. We understand that the major part of their lives is based on performance (whether on stage, film, or field) and by extension we tend to blur the line between their public and private lives. We forget that they are just as human as the rest of us. [Maybe that's why we're so surprised when we hear about OJ Simpson going to trial for homicide, or Pee Wee Herman getting caught masturbating in a porn theater]

We want our kings to wield power, keep us safe, and model earnestness and seriousness for us. We want our court jesters (harlequin, trickster, fool, vaudevillian, devil, etc.) to ridicule that king, speak truth to power, and keep his ego in check. We need them to be bawdy, and wise, and iconoclastic. Checks and balances.

My wild-assed-guess would be that most people don't expect celebrities to be moral leaders, because we know (from experience) that most of them will not be moral leaders. So, for the most part, we overlook their shortcomings but we (society) draw the line at some points on some topics.

I doubt whether many people ever bother to learn much about celebrities person beliefs. I now check out what famous people believe but when I was religious I wouldn’t have known.

That's why they are such good actors they've been pretending there is a higher power to the point of worship. Academy Award every Sunday if not for every dsy of the week...... lol

People making their living in the arts are otherwise no different than any of us. Some are really nice, regular folks. Some are assholes. some are highly talented - others mostly lucky. Some are truly devoted to their art, others devoted to the money they get. Some are very religious, others are not - and everything else in between. I've always found resenting celebrities, or anyone else in the public eye, because of their perceived advantages, is a waste of energy.

The only one you can do something about is you.

If famous people sometimes get breaks in some way because of their fame, remember - we, the ones who watch them do their thing, or buy their music, or tickets to their shows etc., are the ones who elevated them to their privilege.

Some good answers below. Celebrities as artists clearly have a double standard where they are admired for their art and not necessarily their personal lives. It is interesting to take the question further to someone like Trump, where even though he is a politician, his celebrity status and obvious lying about his religious affiliations doesn't seem to bother the religious. It definitely seems that the world is dumbing down and now we are seeing politicians and celebrities in a host of scandals, most of them sexual in nature, and it seems some crash and burn while others are hardly affected. It is also weird how many of them seem to come from the right of the political spectrum which is meant to stand for family values, yet the hypocrisy we see almost on a daily basis is mind blowing. It will be nice to get back to some real values again along with basic common sense, decency and reason ruling the day, rather than this mess of values and celebrity status that is too common in America today.

It's a matter of numbers. Artists, visual, perfoming and others, are catering to a narrow or broad cross section of the population depending on the genre they choose, so for the ones they appeal to those artist can do no wrong. For the rest of the population they can, and often are labelled children of the devil or worse, but the respective artist care naught for those who are not fans. Politicians on the other hand, have to appeal to 51% of a relatively small pocket of population, in a fixed locality, so the perception that the artists are getting a free pass is easy to see. And as MiamiGinger said, Mel Gibson can be seen as a Catholic nut case, but that has no bearing on whether or not someone enjoys his movies. Similarly Salvador Dali would be seen by many to be a raving loony, but still many many art lovers would queue to see his paintings. So, the free pass analogue is possibly not quite the right way to view the differences. But I love your thought provoking posts as always.

"Celebrities" such as actors are not required to pander to their fans by asking for votes, a luxury not shared by politicians who must appeal to some ideal voter who lives at the middle of the road and shares the most conventional of values including some religious beliefs. While performers like Lady Gaga or Elton John have built their celebrity on their eccentricities politicians feel required to hide behind a façade of the most bourgeois of world views and are penalized for straying from that image. It is the fault of people who are both voters and consumers of entertainment that they hold celebrities to a different standard than they do people in public service. I recently saw a picture of a joint session of Congress and was struck by how similar the individual members were one to the other. Each wore a suit and tie except for the women in tailored suits. They looked like an assembly of drones. Is it any wonder that it is difficult to get progressive legislation even considered must less made law when, as a nation, we require them all to come from the same mold? If we set the same standards for politicians that we do for entertainers we might find a much more imaginative assembly of people shaping the legal framework under which we all live.

Admiration of their talents absolves them of a lot of things. That said, I think your wording is problematic. It doesn't "absolve" them of anything. If anything, them being openly "out" about being nonbelievers paints a huge target on their back, a target which the fringe attack regularly. Their fame simply gives them a distance that allows them to feel "untouchable" or "other" to the average person who would normally be hostile toward someone like you or me. It's much easier to look at an actor or musician who makes multi millions for a few months of work and ignore the qualities you dislike in them (or simply not know them at all) than it is to do with your neighbor. One can accept that Mel Gibson is a Catholic nutcase and still appreciate his movies, but it's much harder to be okay with my neighbor spouting scripture at his teenage son because he found out he's gay and thinks it will "fix" him.

None of this is to say that this type of cherry picking is okay. It's obviously not okay, but it's a fact of life.

Politicians and the like thrive based on conformity - it's how they get votes - and their religious affiliation (honest or not) is part of that. I can't personally believe that Trump is a Christian given his behaviour, but pretending to be one seems to work in his favour.

Some other professions (musicians etc.) are lauded for being different and their rebellious and "creative" behaviour and, since they're not in any position to wield real power, are seen as a delightful distraction. I don't think this is at all related to their talent; there are some awful musicians and actors!

That's what I think. Good question, as ever