The Year in Queer TV: Eleven Highs and Lows From 2006

The past year on television included a number of significant advancements for gay actors and characters, but also some unfortunate back-tracking. Here you'll find the highs (the introduction of a confident gay teenager on As the World Turns, the surprisingly moving story of a gay mobster on The Sopranos), the lows (Isaiah Washington's use of an anti-gay slur, the return of the closet-case gay) and everything in between.

1. Everything is coming up Rosie.

The big question when the Queen of Nice returned to daytime television was: Just how gay would Rosie O'Donnell be? The answer: very gay, indeed. Whether it's taking on Kelly Ripa over her treatment of Clay Aiken or actually managing to broaden conservative co-host Elisabeth Hasselbeck's mind, Rosie has discussed gay issues with a tact that few suspected she possessed. On a weekly basis, Middle America is hit with O'Donnell's take on issues ranging from gay marriage to gay adoption and everything in between. And it sure beats listening to Bill O'Reilly bloviate.

2. The other F-word and sexual orientation epithets.

Gay Americans are far too used to hearing “gay” and “faggot” used as pejorative terms. So this year when a baseball coach (Ozzie Guillen), a well-known actor (Isaiah Washington) and a football player (Joey Porter) all used the F-word, many gay folks said enough is enough. (Nor was it appreciated when Survivor's Nate called Brad Virata a "nancy boy".) The mainstream media still doesn't get it, spending the bulk of their time focusing on personality clashes (the baseball coach and the journalist, the feuding actors going mano-a-mano), but every time the issue came up, it gave the GLBT community a chance to do some education. After pressure from gay groups, Guillen and Washington both apologized (with varying degrees of sincerity), but it was Porter who finally learned that bigotry has a cost. In this case it cost him $10,000 to call another player a fag. Maybe that'll get the attention of those likely to spout insulting epithets.

3. “Lancing” should be done only to treat a boil.

After his boyfriend, Lance Bass, was outed earlier this year, Reichen Lehmkuhl coined the term “lancing” to describe what happens when a gay person is hounded out of the closet, specifically by blogs that speculate about their personal lives and publish photos of them. While we wholeheartedly applaud celebrities coming out (yay, Neil Patrick Harris, T.R. Knight and Thomas Roberts!), we firmly believe the word “lancing” should never be heard outside of the doctor's office or at the Renaissance Fair.

4. The Brits just do it better.

Whether it's science fiction (Dr. Who, Torchwood), soap operas (Footballers' Wives, Hollyoaks in the City), dramas (The Line of Beauty), comedy (Little Britain) or reality shows (Shipwrecked), our mates across the pond just seem to do gay television better. Heck, the BBC actually spun off a show from the hit Dr. Who that stars an openly gay man as a bisexual hero. Try to imagine Battlestar Galactica (or Heroes!) doing that. Gay story lines just seem to occur more naturally — and with less fuss — on British telly. On the other hand, England did foist Wham! off on the rest of us.