AMERICA HAS ENTERED a new era of McCarthyism.

The modern day Red Scare began with drumming out those deemed disloyal to President Bush or anyone viewed as less-than-supportive of his so-called “war on terror.”

The Bush scare tactics that were deployed to push us into war are now used to bully Americans into following the GOP’s backward-looking views on domestic cultural issues, including gay rights.

This trend, and the ensuing witch-hunts targeting the disloyal, now has the “liberal media” running scared and working overtime to ape the Bush propaganda machine over at Fox News. There are numerous recent examples of media capitulation to fundamentalist Christian conservatives, which now wield a power wildly disproportionate to their numbers.

Both NBC and CBS have rejected an ad from the United Church of Christ that advocated for inclusiveness of gay couples. CBS told the UCC that the ad was unacceptable for broadcast because of scenes that address “the exclusion of gay couples and other minority groups” by other religious groups as well as “the fact the executive branch has recently proposed a constitutional amendment to define marriage as a union between a man and a woman.”

ABC’s “20/20” last month attempted to rewrite history, portraying the sadistic murderers of Matthew Shepard as ordinary American kids tricked by lawyers into pursuing a “gay panic” defense at their trial.

A recent episode of the hit CBS show “Survivor” featured the castaways reuniting with loved ones on their remote island. While the straight contestants were shown embracing and kissing their significant others, the camera quickly panned away from any scenes of lesbian contestants Ami and Scout greeting their same-sex partners.

When asked about the editing out of the lesbian kisses, producer Mark Burnett told Entertainment Weekly magazine, “I’d be an idiot not to notice both the way the country voted and the backlash from the FCC that came off of Janet Jackson’s [Super Bowl debacle]. I wanted to protect my franchise and didn’t think it was right to show both lesbian kisses at 8 o’clock.”

Burnett’s cowardly explanation fails to address the obvious double standard at work at CBS.

What are all these liberal elites so afraid of? Gestapo-like visits in the middle of the night from FCC storm troopers? Deportation to Guantanamo? The answer is surprising.

THEY’RE ALL RUNNING scared from the Parents Television Council activist group.

According to a new FCC estimate obtained by Mediaweek magazine, “nearly all indecency complaints in 2003 — 99.8 percent — were filed by the Parents Television Council. This year, the trend has continued, and perhaps intensified.

“Through early October, 99.9 percent of indecency complaints — aside from those concerning the Janet Jackson ‘wardrobe malfunction’ during the Super Bowl halftime show broadcast on CBS — were brought by the PTC, according to the FCC analysis dated Oct. 1.”

That’s right, 99.9 percent. The PTC Web site makes it easy to file an FCC complaint; there’s a homepage link to a short form letter, a quick click and concerned citizens — or automated bots that dispatch these sorts of form letter spam messages without human involvement — have FCC Chair Michael Powell’s ear.

(Michael’s daddy, Colin, ought to remind his son that Janet Jackson was a major contributor to his charity, America’s Promise. The freedom-hating Janet was such a major donor that the future secretary of state even showed up at Janet’s concert broadcast live on HBO to thank her and blow her kisses.)

The shocking revelation that one obscure, sanctimonious organization is behind the bulk of FCC complaints begs the obvious question: If so few Americans are offended by TV smut, then why all the hand-wringing and capitulation by big media?

The watchdogs at PTC must be apoplectic over the rise of “Desperate Housewives.” Television’s trashiest show is also its most popular.

WE MUST RETURN to Bush’s McCarthyism to explain these contradictions.

In the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Bush cynically used world sympathy to silence his critics. Anyone who dared criticize Bush was unpatriotic, a bin Laden sympathizer, maybe even a terrorist. Just ask the Dixie Chicks. Or all the Democratic members of Congress who lined up like lemmings to back Bush’s misadventure in Iraq.

The nation was — and still is — running scared from Bush, his fundamentalist supporters, the Drudge Report, Fox News, and scores of bloggers who stand at the ready to skewer, discredit and smear administration critics.

The fear of attack from these arrayed forces that Bush used to push us into a needless war now is used to keep us in lock step with the party line on domestic cultural issues.

When Bush called for a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, straight members of Congress — save for Ted Kennedy — didn’t argue that gay relationships deserve protection. Instead, they said it was a states-rights issue and avoided any honest discussion of gay relationships.

Why? Because to do so would open them up to ridicule and public excoriation from the enforcers of our new cultural conservatism.

And so the contradictions that define American life continue. While 61 percent of Americans say gay couples deserve some protections, our president vows to win approval of a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. While “Desperate Housewives” sits atop the ratings charts, the FCC sits beholden to a single partisan interest group, doling out fines at the split-second sight of a breast.

McCarthyism is not dead. Just as the misguided senator sought to suppress “radical” organizations in the name of protecting the nation from scary foreign powers, Bush and his enforcers seek to purge dissenters and those who would oppose returning to 1950s-style values where gays knew their place and stayed in the closet.

Conservative Christians may have this president’s ear, but the numbers don’t lie. And the anti-gay fundamentalists are outnumbered.

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