Previous seasons of Grey's Anatomy have included positive portrayals of several reoccurring and supporting gay characters. The show's only reoccurring gay character, Joe (Steven W. Bailey), owns a bar across the street from the hospital. Like any good bartender, he listens to his customer's torrid and chaotic love lives, while keeping the beer flowing. The character's sexuality wasn't revealed to audiences until the second season episode, Thanks for the Memories, when he and his boyfriend, Walter (Jack Yang), were invited to Izzy's (Katherine Heigl) Thanksgiving dinner.

In another episode the same season, Break on Through, confusion brought on by a nurse's strike causes Dr. Grey to accidentally revive an elderly patient who has signed a Do Not Resuscitate order. The patient's chirping friends, an elderly trio, berate the young doctors for the mistake. It's also revealed the only family the dying woman has left is her daughter who, one of the friends casually mentions, “is a lesbian. Not that there is anything wrong with that.” A short time later, the daughter arrives with her partner. As they watch the elderly woman slip away, the lesbian partners lovingly embrace.

The following month, in What Have I Done to Deserve This, a young boy is admitted after being hit in the head with a baseball. One of his fathers, Rick, played by openly gay actor, Jonathan Slavin (Hard Pill), clucks around like an overprotective den mother questioning everything the doctors are doing. Michael (Matt Roth), the other father, clearly knows what to say to calm his partner down. When Dr. Shepherd has to perform an emergency procedure to alleviate blood pressure on the boy's brain, the pair entwine their fingers, anxiously awaiting the news.

About his character, Jonathan Slavin told AfterElton: “He was clearly very neurotic. And the gay angle, it was never discussed. It just was [there]. That wasn't the storyline; the storyline was that there was a kid who was hurt. And, the fact that there was two dads was completely incidental, which I love!

“Most of the time what you get [as an actor] is either the quick-witted best friend or the, ‘Hi, I'm gay-gay-gay-gay.' Everything gay! [character]. This was a committed relationship and a child, so that was fantastic.”

The role of an over-protective gay parent is familiar to Slavin. Inconceivable, a short-lived NBC show produced by Touchstone Pictures (the same production house that produces Grey's Anatomy) showed Slavin as the gay father of a newborn in danger of dying. Slavin said, “The actor playing my boyfriend reaches across the hospital bed for my hand, and [the director shouts], ‘Cut, cut! No, no touching!' ”

Slavin had nothing but high praise for the director of his stint on Grey's Anatomy, Wendy Stanzler. He explained, “ Wendy said, ‘When they're drilling into his head, I want you two to grab each other's hand. You're a couple! I will present you as a couple.' She's great. There was no hesitation.”

Stanzler also directed the Desperate Housewives episode, I Know Things Now, where Susan (Teri Hatcher) caught Andrew Van DeKamp (Shawn Pyfrom) and Justin (Andrew Carnes) kissing in her pool. The episode was highly praised by the gay community for it's non-sensational handling.

While these characters are minor, and aren't involved in the complicated webs of romantic woe Grey's Anatomy is known for, they do serve as positive visibility. We hope this is one impulse they'll give into more often.

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