But if we accept that Will & Grace, Dawson's Creek, and the rest once fostered acceptance, it's fair to ask if Glee may be hurting it, especially because the Kurt model is everywhere. There's Marc (Michael Urie), the flaming fashion assistant on Ugly Betty; Lloyd (Rex Lee), Ari's sassy receptionist on Entourage; the gay couple on Modern Family (one guy still pines for his ice-skating career; the other wears purple in every episode). The fey way extends to nonfiction, too, from the dozens of squealing contestants on Project Runway to the two gayest words in the English language: Perez Hilton. Next week American Idol runner-up Adam Lambert's new album, For Your Entertainment, arrives: that's Lambert on the cover, wearing heavy mascara, black nail polish, and perfect lip gloss.

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The problem with the Glee club is that Kurt and the rest are loud and proud, but their generation has turned down the volume. All this at a time when standing apart seems particularly counterproductive. Marriage (and the military) are sacred institutions, so it's not surprising that some heterosexuals will defend them against what they see as a radical alteration. But if you want to be invited to someone else's party, sometimes you have to dress the part. Is that a form of appeasement? Maybe. It's not that gay men and women should pretend to be straight, or file down all their fabulously spiky edges. But even Rachel Maddow wears lipstick on TV. The key is balance. There's so much more to the gay community than the people on TV (or at a gay-pride parade). We just want a chance to live and love like everybody else. Unfortunately, at the rate we're going, we won't get there until the post-post-gay generation.

Today Newsweek posted an article by reporter Ramin Setoodeh titled "Kings of Queens: Gays on TV once helped promote tolerance. Now they may be hurting it."

In all honestly, it's one of the worst articles about the subject that I've ever read.

The gist of the piece? Effeminate gay characters on television are possibly responsible for the defeat of gay rights in Maine, California and a general decrease in tolerance toward the GLBT community.

First of all, Setoodeh seems to be overloooking a lot of gay characters currently on TV. In the past year alone, American audiences have been introduced to a gay cop on Southland, a gay teen on United States of Tara, a gay paramedic on Trauma, another gay cop on One Life to Live, and a gay prince on Kings, none of whom fit the stereotypes troubling Setoodeh. (Granted, three of these programs have been canceled — with Southland then getting picked up by another network — but even those characters were still seen by millions of people.)

Other gay characters that shouldn't "trouble" Setoodeh that are currently being watched in American homes include the bisexual Captain Jack on Torchwood, gay fraternity brother Calvin on Greek, Kevin and Scotty on Brothers & Sisters, Luke and Noah on As the World Turns and, well, the list goes on.

I would like to join my good friend Kristin Chenoweth on her condemnation of a recent Newsweek article written by Mr. Ramin Setoodeh, in which Setoodeh basically says that out gay actors should go back into the closet and never attempt to play straight characters.
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Today, I have asked GLAAD president Jarrett Barrios to stand with me and others and ask for an immediate boycott of Newsweek magazine until an apology is issued to Sean Hayes and other brave out actors who were cruelly singled out in this damaging, needlessly cruel, and mind-blowingly bigoted piece. An apology should also be issued to all gay readers of the magazine...steelworkers, parents, accountants, doctors, etc...proud hardworking Americans who, if this article is to be believed, should only identify themselves as "queeny" people (a word used by Setoodeh in the article) who stand at the back of the bus and embrace an outdated decades old stereotype.

haven't watched Glee in a while, but I did watch a few minutes of this past episode, and I have to say that I knew Rachel's new love interest was gay in the first five seconds, and I did not know anything about Jonathan Groff until I read this article.

Actually, there's some thinking that your impression was deliberately given. After all, the writers have given Jesse with a lot of stereotypically gay references in his dialogue - from calling himself a "drama queen," to mentioning Barbra Streisand and in the "Bad Reputation" episode, his casual dropping of ballet references. We still don't know if Jesse really is interested in Rachel, or whether he was just a spy from their rival club. I would not be surprised at all to see a future plot point be the revelation of Jesse's homosexuality and his deliberate wooing of Rachel.

If that were to happen, the added bonus would be the egg on Setoodeh's face.

But once you get into the world of actors, there are a lot fewer willing to stand up and be counted … as I discovered this week, especially those who act in the more conventional or commercial theatres.

I initially noticed it by coincidence, in two interviews I did with two very different performers.

One of them is a major distinguished figure on our stages and although it's generally known that he's gay within the theatrical world, he's never given any statements to that effect and still doesn't want to.

"I'm not ashamed of being gay," he insisted. "Anyone who knows me is aware of that. But I don't want to be labelled. Once they call you ‘a gay actor,' there's an implication that you can't play anything else."
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The other performer was in his early 20s and has been out for several years to all his family, friends and colleagues. But even he asked that any mention of his private life be left out of the piece I was writing, because "it's nobody's business."
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After getting these two reactions, I started to look around more widely and found that, quite frankly, none of the stage performers I talked to wanted to be labelled as "gay" in the press. All of them are open in their personal lives to those who come in contact with them and aren't “living a lie” by any means, but they just don't want it in print.

One of them said, "I don't like that label, 'openly gay actor', because then that's all you become in the press. And as a gay man, I'm not sure how I feel about that yet."

Another performer, both contentedly gay and one of the most virile leading men around, simply said, "It's my private life and I prefer to keep it that way."