Gay Visibility Rises at Emmy Awards

At Sunday night's 59th Primetime Emmy Awards a gay milestone was marked before the first winner was even announced. For the first time in Emmy history, three out gay actors were up for acting awards and two of those actors were nominated for their work playing recurring heterosexual roles.

The actors nominated were T.R Knight for Supporting Actor Drama Series (Grey's Anatomy), Neil Patrick Harris for Supporting Actor Comedy Series (How I Met Your Mother), and Sir Ian McKellen for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series (Extras). McKellen's category was actually part of the Creative Awards presented a week ago Saturday night where McKellen lost to Stanley Tucci for his work on Monk.

Knight's competition included William Shatner of Boston Legal, Masi Oka of Heroes, Michael Imperioli of The Sopranos, and Terry O'Quinn and Michael Emerson both of Lost. With HBO's much-lauded hit The Sopranos ending its run, it was widely expected to do well during the evening, but in a bit of an upset O'Quinn wound up taking home the Best Supporting Actor award.

Meanwhile, Harris, who plays cad Barney Stinson on How I Met Your Mother, went up against Jeremy Piven and Kevin Dillion of HBO's Entourage, Rainn Wilson of The Office and Jon Cryer of Two and a Half Men. Going into the evening, Piven and Wilson were considered frontrunners, and Piven wound up collecting the gold statuette.

Knight, McKellen, and Harris weren't the only gay men up for Emmys last night. Other out gay men nominated for their work behind the camera included Silvio Horta and Marco Pennette as executive producers on Ugly Betty, Bryan Singer for executive producer on House, and Bryan Fuller as co-executive producer on Heroes. Rob Marshall, the Oscar-nominated director of Chicago, snagged the Emmy for Best Director in a Variety series for his Tony Bennett special.

Gay favorite Ugly Betty received a total of four major nominations including Best Comedy, Best Lead Actress in a Comedy for America Ferrera, Best Supporting Actress for a Comedy for Vanessa Williams, and Outstanding Directing for a Comedy Series for Richard Shephard. The show took home the Best Actress award for Ferrera and Outstanding Director for Shephard.

Ugly Betty lost the Best Comedy Emmy to Tina Fey's 30 Rock, but that led to one of the evening's best moments when, during her acceptance speech, Fey thanked the "parents, children, spouses and gay partners" of every person who works on the show. And the clip from 30 Rock shown included the scene where Fey's character says, "...just because I think that gay guys should be allowed to adopt kids ... doesn't mean I don't love America".

Another gay favorite, ABC's Brothers & Sisters featuring Matthew Rhys as the gay Kevin Walker, received two acting nominations, one for Sally Field as Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama and one for Rachel Griffiths as Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama. In one of the evening's larger upsets, Field beat out Mariska Hargitay, Kyra Sedgwick, and Minnie Driver. Given that this time last year it appeared B&S was doomed to an early cancellation, Field's win is a major boost for the show.

As for Griffiths, she lost to Katherine Heigl of Grey's Anatomy. On the way to accept her award, Heigl hugged Grey's co-star Knight to whose defense she notably came during last years Isaiah Washington controversy.

Other Emmy awards of note for gay fans include The Office's "Gay Witch Hunt" episode, which won the Emmy for Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series, Ellen Degeneres' nomination for hosting this year's Oscars, and nominations for the very gay-friendly hosts Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert for their Comedy Central shows.

Reality programming has also been fertile ground for gay visibility and three of those shows were also up for awards. Both Top Chef and Project Runaway of Bravo are executive produced by the out Andy Cohen and both shows regularly feature gay men, including Tim Gunn who hosts Project Runway. But they lost the Outstanding Reality-competition Program Emmy to CBS's The Amazing Race: All Stars which featured two gay couples competing for the top prize.

As is often the case with awards show, gay jokes were fairly commonplace with many being directed at Idaho's disgraced Senator Larry Craig. In one skit, Bill Maher read a list of nominees from inside a bathroom stall before squirting his mouth with breath freshener as if about to solicit someone in the restroom. At another point, Seacrest appeared wearing a fey pirate costume about which he said, "This looked a lot less gay on the rack." He then asked if he could keep it. While introducing Cold Case's Kathryn Morris and Danny Pino, Seacrest observed Morris is hot and then made the same comment about Pino.