Best. Gay. Week. Ever! Giving Thanks for Beefcake and Much More!

DEAR LADY GAGA, FROM WHOM ALL GOOD THINGS FLOW, THIS THANKSGIVING I'M THANKFUL FOR...
For those of us living here in the U.S., next week is our Thanksgiving holiday where we give thanks for living in a country riven by political strife, sky high unemployment and the sense that everything has completely gone off the rails.

Or something like that.

Fortunately, here at AfterElton.com, we get to concern ourselves with pop culture things of a more lighthearted nature, so here are my Ten Things From 2010 for Which I Am Most Grateful! Note, this isn't meant to be the most important or the best, but are just a few things that stood out for me.

1) Kristin Chenoweth bitchslapping Ramin Setoodeh

Newsweek People Newsweek writer Ramin Setoodeh had been our radar long before Broadway star Kristin Chenoweth called him out over his idiotic comments concerning the ability of gay actors like Sean Hayes and Jonathan Groff to convincingly play straight characters. But it was her comment posted on the Newsweek website that propelled the issue into the stratosphere and led to Setoodeh's public pillorying.

BTW, Setoodeh is continuing his bang-up work at Newsweek where he is writing stories like "Creepy Celebrity Costume Predictions." His parents must be soooo proud!

2) Straight people who actually apologize

By now we are all too familiar with those folks who drop some homophobic comment or slur and then apologize by saying "If anyone was offended by what I said yadda yadda yadda." And this year had plenty of those kinds of apologies. But we also saw two men step up and apologize for things that they said about the gay community.

Up first was Pro Football Weekly analyst Dan Hampton who insulted the Dallas Cowboy's by saying they were "Brokeback Mountain" cowboys. Hampton did an on-air apology where he said he was "truly sorry" and called himself an idiot. (He also included a bit of the "If I offended anyone," but unlike other's dodging responsibility, he truly seemed to be trying to accept it.)

Next we had "America's psychologist" Dr. Jeff Gardere who appeared on CNN where he said a "parent's worst nightmare is contemplating having a gay child." That same day, Gardere issued a full apology and explanation for what he said.

Now if only more grown-ups could apologize that way.

3) Kevin and Scotty, Kurt and Blaine, Justin and Austin, and every other depiction of gay couples on television

For those readers under a certain age (or with memory problems), it's probably hard to imagine that it was not so very long ago that the very notion of seeing two men be affectionate with each other on television was almost unheard of. Indeed, the idea of two men kissing was enough to send legions of rightwingers stampeding to the crayon box where they dashed off screeds to the networks about gay kissing being a sign of the impending apocalypse.

But we've now reached a point where just this week we had Blaine singing an unabashedly romantic (even sexual) song to Kurt on Glee, while over on Brothers & Sisters we had this quick shot of Kevin and Scotty cuddling.

I know it was just a brief shot, but I think even that is still such a powerful image given that in America so many straight folks still don't get the fact that most gay/bi couples are not so very different from themselves. And I can't begin to tell you how much seeing something as simple and sweet as Kevin and Scotty snuggling would've meant to me as a teenager.

Next page! I'll have a serving of beefcake, please!