David Johnson sings about his love for David Hasselhoff on "America's Got Talent"

Yesterday I wondered how America's Got Talent would treat gay acts this season. Last season several queer acts were given the chance to win the audience's vote and last night's premiere raised my hopes for how queer contestants would be treated this year.

One gay-themed act featured loan officer David Johnson, who promised that he'd be singing a song he wrote about his high school crush, a star from Baywatch. While AGT tried to lead the audience to believe the song would be about Pamela Anderson (in the show's usual heavy-handed way), my gaydar was set off by the way Johnson carefully avoided gender-specific words. Sure enough, when he hit the stage, his song turned out to be an ode to judge David Hasselhoff.

Johnson's song started out badly. He doesn't have a great voice and the opening lyrics sounded rather stalker-ish but his performance quickly developed a cheesy, silly charm with lines like, "I'd spoon you the whole night through, even if you had the flu, David Hasselhoff." The audience quickly switched from boos to cheers.

While it's not clear if Johnson is gay, his performance gave America's Got Talent the opportunity to make the kind of jokes we saw So You Think You Can Dance make with Misha and Mitch's audition, jokes that AGT smartly avoided. The soundtrack to his entrance and exit was "Hungry Eyes", which didn't stress the fact that the song was about a same-sex crush. Meanwhile, the teasing that Piers Morgan gave Hasselhoff would easily have applied if a woman sang the song.

Meanwhile, one of the audition montage sequences showed another gay act, The New York City Gay Men's Chorus, making it through to the next round. Check out the clip of Johnson's performance below.