The singer's new track, "Born This Way," was intended as an anthem to diversity and acceptance. But as Jacob Bernstein reports, her core fanbase thinks it's just a pandering piece of pop. 
 
 In her new single "Born This Way," Lady Gaga implores listeners "don't be a drag, just be a queen," and says, "it doesn't matter whether you love him or capital H-I-M." The singer has said she wanted to create the ultimate gay anthem, and perhaps she's succeeded. By Friday night, the track had raced to the top of the iTunes charts and gotten a stellar plug from her gay consigliere in cyberspace, Perez Hilton. Rolling Stone also applauded Gaga's effort, with Rob Sheffield giving the song four stars. 
 
 Still, among a specific set of urban gay men—many of whom had bought tickets to her shows, worked out at Equinox with her album The Fame Monster blaring in their ears, danced to her music on Fire Island, and discussed her outré wardrobe with a tendency that would alarm even the most pro-gay straight people—the reaction was surprisingly mixed. 
 
 Some of the swipes were minor. Aaron Hicklin, the editor of Out (one of the earliest publications to put Gaga on the cover) was the first to break ranks. On Saturday, he took to his Facebook account and wrote a message saying, "Gaga shmaga." He urged friends to go out and buy the new Adele album instead. 
 
 On Monday—after Gaga performed the song at the Grammys with a troupe of scantily clad dancers while donning a ponytail reminiscent of early '90s Madonna—Andy Cohen, the Bravo host, wrote on his blog that he found her number "very Blond Ambition meets Express Yourself." This did not appear to be a compliment. 
 
 Eric Ord, an openly gay chap working in New York in commercial real estate, said, "I think she sees herself as the gay messiah and it bugs me." According to him, the song would be like "white people writing a song about breaking free from slavery and expecting black people to worship us for it." (To be fair, Lady Gaga has said she's attracted to both men and women.) And Aaron Newbill, a modeling agent, referred to an old quote where Gaga said she wrote the song in 10 minutes. "She should have taken at least 11," he said. 
 
 "I sort of liked Gaga more when she sang about dancing as opposed to trying to be the voice of a generation," says a gay party promoter in New York. 
 
 Michael Caulfield / Getty Images 
 
 Even among Gaga's most reliable demographic—denizens of the gay club world—the reaction was far from uniformly positive. Jared Needle, who with his business partner Josh Wood is the biggest gay party promoter in New York, said, "I find the lyrics cliché and the melody overly Madonna-esque. It seems pretty en vogue at the moment to pander to people's concerns about bullying. It's a good PR move because it's hard to hate a song that speaks to acceptance—unless that dialogue seems forced, inauthentic, and disingenuous. I sort of liked Gaga more when she sang about dancing as opposed to trying to be the voice of a generation." 
 
 It's worth noting that artists who get political always get blowback from people who think they ought to stop proselytizing and just entertain. Madonna has heard it numerous times, especially when she approached issues like AIDS and sexuality nearly 25 years ago. So did Bono, back when he and his band sang about Martin Luther King Jr. on "Pride (In the Name of Love)." And at least one gay I know was quick to defend Gaga on the issue of using the song as a marketing ploy. Said Corey Johnson, the political director for Towleroad.com and a consultant who's worked on numerous political campaigns for Democrats, like Howard Dean and Mark Green: "Gaga has used her celebrity to advocate for equality more than anyone else—not just by tweeting but actually going to the state of Maine to activate young people to contact the two moderate Republican senators there and bring discharged veterans to the Video Music Awards. She has walked the walk and I don't second guess it, not even for a moment." ||||| Finally! Hear Lady Gaga's New Song 'Born This Way' 
 
 Email This She's on the right track, baby! 
 
 
 
 After months of hype and teasing, Lady Gaga debuted her new single, 'Born This Way,' this morning. The track, written by Gaga and produced by DJ White Shadow, Gaga and Fernando Garibay, makes good use of the diva's big voice and penchant for drama, combining powerhouse vocals with in-your-face lyrics about race and sexuality. It also sounds an awful lot like Madonna's 'Express Yourself,' which is 
 
 
 
 I wrote ['Born This Way'] in 10 f**king minutes," Gaga told She's on the right track, baby!After months of hype and teasing, Lady Gaga debuted her new single, 'Born This Way,' this morning. The track, written by Gaga and produced by DJ White Shadow, Gaga and Fernando Garibay, makes good use of the diva's big voice and penchant for drama, combining powerhouse vocals with in-your-face lyrics about race and sexuality. It also sounds an awful lot like Madonna's 'Express Yourself,' which is causing a commotion on Twitter.I wrote ['Born This Way'] in 10 f**king minutes," Gaga told Vogue . "And it is a completely magical message song. And after I wrote it, the gates just opened, and the songs kept coming. It was like an immaculate conception." 
 
 The pop star will perform the song on Sunday at the Grammy Awards, where she is nominated for six prizes, including Album of the Year and Best Female Pop Vocal Performance.Gaga has been hyping the track for months. She sent her fans into a frenzy in September at the MTV Video Music Awards by launching into an a cappella take on the song's chorus. In late January, she leaked the lyrics to 'Born This Way' on Twitter, and soon thereafter announced that she was moving up the single's release date from Feb. 13 to Feb. 11, tweeting , "Can't wait any longer.""I think 'Born This Way' is the kind of record that if you are really paying attention you will get the full depth of Gaga as a songwriter," Akon, a frequent Gaga collaborator who signed the pop star to his Kon Live Distribution label in 2007, recently told. "Sometimes, the creative image hides the element of her lyrical content. That's why she wanted to give people a better idea of what she was saying outside of her image when she dropped those lyrics."Gaga's new album, also titled 'Born This Way,' drops on May 23.So, are you loving 'Born this Way' as much as we are? Let us know in the comments.
– Lady Gaga's "Born This Way" debuted to wildly enthusiastic reviews from the likes of Elton John and Perez Hilton, who see it as the new gay anthem—but other prominent gays are not so happy about it, writes Jacob Bernstein on the Daily Beast. Critiques ranged from the mild ("Gaga shmaga," wrote the editor of Out) to less mild ("very Blond Ambition meets Express Yourself," wrote Bravo host Andy Cohen) to the downright severe: "It seems pretty en vogue at the moment to pander to people's concerns about bullying," a party promoter says. "I sort of liked Gaga more when she sang about dancing as opposed to trying to be the voice of a generation." Another gay man came up with this analogy for the song: It's like "white people writing a song about breaking free from slavery and expecting black people to worship us for it." (Although, Bernstein points out, Gaga has said she's attracted to both sexes.) A modeling agent, noting that Gaga once said she wrote the song in 10 minutes, said "she should have taken at least 11;" a DJ and former drag performer called the track "cheesy and overproduced." But what about Madonna, whose "Express Yourself" so many people have compared the track to? She's a fan, Gaga assured Jay Leno last night. Watch that video in the gallery or click to listen to the song.