Rosie O’Donnell recently criticized Kelly Ripa, the co-host of “Live with Regis and Kelly,” for pushing Clay Aiken’s hand away from her mouth and, while doing so, saying, “I don’t know where that hand has been.”

Rosie said on “The View” that Kelly would never have made the comment/gesture about a “straight” man.

Kelly said she doesn’t like hands over her mouth because she might catch a cold, and that was her reason for saying what she did. Archived footage from previous shows showed Kelly doing the same to Regis.

Rosie said there’s a double standard in Hollywood’s treatment of straight celebrities and men who are openly gay or perceived to be gay.

It’s also been present forever in law enforcement.

Imagine a romantic quiet night in Malibu, where straight couples looking for a place to make love decide to “bag” it on the beach. It’s dark, it’s desolate and it’s not a place where police usually patrol. Unless you’re a gay couple.

Legendary gay civil rights attorney (and former West Hollywood mayor) John Duran recently succeeded in convincing a judge to order the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department to release all lewd conduct arrest reports for the past two years.

That’s because a San Francisco resident was arrested last year on Sept.15 for allegedly committing a lewd act in a restroom on a public beach in Malibu, the gay magazine IN Los Angeles reported.

Under California law, regardless of whether the person charged committed the act, there is a defense called “selective enforcement.” It’s a defense that gays and lesbians know well. The California Supreme Court ruled more than a decade ago that police cannot enforce laws against gay men without enforcing the same laws against straight men. In order to prove bias, statistics must show that police enforce laws against gays only. A defendant can obtain police records by proving to a judge that such bias may exist.

Duran proved it when the captain of the Malibu Lifeguards testified that his lifeguards might treat a gay couple having sex on the beach differently than a straight couple. That’s bias.

The lifeguards’ logs show complaints of lewd activity, but they often leave out something crucial, such as whether someone was uncomfortable with having gay men on the beach. Very few straight men complain about two women having sex on a beach.

The judge, Commissioner Terry Adamson, agreed that there was enough proof to show a pattern of discrimination. The sheriff’s department has 60 days to comply with the order.

Duran told IN Los Angeles that he thinks prosecution of lewd conduct cases discriminates against gay men. “It’s one of the last official government-sanctioned forms of discrimination under the law,” he added.

The stakes are also a bit higher now. California law requires judges to order persons convicted of most sex-related offenses to register as sex offenders. Historically, gay groups have opposed most of these measures, especially ones that lump non-violent, consensual matters with violent ones. That’s because statistically it’s usually gay men and women who are the recipients of selective enforcement and stiffer punishments.

California voters recently passed “Jessica’s Law,” which requires convicted sex offenders to register for life, wear monitoring devices and, perhaps, move to the Mojave Desert. That’s because the law’s geographical restraints make it tough for RSOs to live anywhere near civilization.

It’s absurd to treat gay men arrested for indecent exposure at Black’s Beach the same as other men who have violently raped young girls and women. But that’s the law California voters approved.

And it’s not just lewd conduct laws where we see double standards. They also appears in other sex-related laws. For example, local police agencies have arrested a lot of straight men soliciting prostitutes (for example on El Cajon Boulevard in San Diego, and most recently in National City).

A bizarre twist on these arrests is that many of the sex workers are females less than 18 years of age. At worst, police charge these men (johns) with soliciting sex. The fact that the sex worker is underage has never been an issue in the cases I’ve researched.

But when the prostitute is a male (being solicited by another male), it may (and often does) get treated as attempted child abuse.