Queerly Beloved

When Kevin and Scotty marched down the aisle Sunday night on ABC's Brothers and Sisters, it marked the first same-sex wedding of a series regular in the history of American network television. But even when the field is expanded to include cable and British television, its on-bended-knee proposal and family wedding will still be one of only a very, very few same-sex weddings ever shown in a scripted drama or comedy on the small or the large screen.

In fact, excepting a handful of documentaries, one mockumentary, and the increasingly gay-inclusive folks on reality TV, scavenging for same-sex weddings in the media requires a lot of detective work. Finding those that depict genuine marriages between two people in love where no one is left standing at the altar requires a magnifying glass. And if you want to count only legal weddings, without Canada, there'd be nothing at all.

Network TV

It's not like scripted broadcast television is just loaded with GLBT representation in the first place, let alone positive portrayals of same-sex relationships, with or without a wedding. There are a few mixed-sex green card marriages with one gay spouse – Jack marrying Rosario on Will and Grace, the Luke/Noah/Ameera storyline on As the World Turns – and one mixed-sex political protest wedding from a 1996 episode of Spin City, but not much in the way of caterers, rings, and crying mothers of the bride for two guys or two gals.

Roc: "Can't Help Loving That Man" (1991)

Although there's a cast credit for a minister (Abdul Salaam El Razzac), it's not entirely clear whether the vows themselves were depicted in this FOX sitcom's Very Special Episode about gay marriage, but it was historic for the date alone, as well as its overall positive take on same-sex marriage and family bonds.

Roc Emerson (Charles S. Dutton) is a black garbage collector in Baltimore who lives with his wife Eleanor (Ella Joyce), as well as his father Andrew (Carl Gordon). Andrew's brother Russell (Richard Roundtree) turns up with a white lover and announces the two of them are getting married.

Eleanor offers the family home for the ceremony, which causes considerable tension in the family. Fortunately, family love triumphs, and the episode went on to win one of the earliest GLAAD Media Awards.

Northern Exposure: "I Feel the Earth Move" (1994)

The first same-sex wedding ceremony in a television drama took place on a quirky, long-running show called Northern Exposure. Amazingly queer-friendly for its day, the series was set in the fictional town of Cicely, Alaska, a town founded by two Gold Rush-era lesbians.

Although gay B&B proprietors Ron (Doug Ballard) and Erick (Don McManus) didn't join the cast of the series until the fifth season, they were prominent and recurring secondary characters – and pretty much two of the most normal people in Cicely. And their wedding was perhaps the most conventional wedding in the show's history, too – caterer, rings, tuxedos, and all.

Of course, just like poor Matt Fielding (Doug Savant) and his invisible kiss on Melrose Place, their historic smooch took place off camera. Still, it was clear that the two men had just kissed, and no one in the audience had a problem with it other than curmudgeonly right wing ex-astronaut Maurice Minnifield (Barry Corbin). And even he just looked a little dyspeptic.

Roseanne: "December Bride" (1995)

This irreverent and long-running sitcom made a complete mockery of same-sex marriage, just like it did of every other subject it ever tackled. Roseanne's friend and colleague Leon (Martin Mull as one of television's best and most fully-developed gay secondary characters) loses his mind and asks Roseanne, the queen of tacky, to plan his wedding to longtime beau Scott (Fred Willard). As expected, the event doesn't quite turn out to be a celebration of taste:

Leon: Roseanne, what is all this?
Roseanne: It's a gay wedding!
Leon: This isn't a wedding - it's a circus! You have somehow managed to take every gay stereotype and roll them up into one gigantic, offensive, Roseanniacal ball of wrong!

Roseanne redeems herself by talking Leon down from a bad case of pre-ceremony cold feet:

Leon: What if I'm not even gay?
Roseanne: You couldn't be any gayer if your name was Gay Gayerson.
Leon: Think about it. I hate to shop, I'm positively insensitive, I detest Barbra Streisand, and, for God's sake, I'm a Republican!
Roseanne: But do you like having sex with men?
Leon: Well...
Roseanne: Gay!
Leon: Oh, yeah. (gives her a big kiss) Okay... I'm gay. Let's go.