Battle of the Network Gays: August 27, 2009

Every week we pick the gays who we think have made the biggest splash in television and leave it to you, the keepers of the flame, to decide who will be crowned Gay of the Week. We'll announce the winner on Friday's BGWE column, and that champ will reign until a new set of challengers are introduced the following week to try to steal his title.

This week we have that perennial True Blood favorite Lafayette up against three brand new contenders: One a Broadway hunk making the leap to daytime, and the other two newly-minted reality show stars.

Check them out their qualifications after the break, and vote for your favorite!

This week's contenders:

• Nick (Nicholas Rodriguez) from One Life to Live. Why? As played by out gay Broadway performer Nicholas Rodriguez, Nick might actually parlay his stint in Llanview as a romantic interest for Kyle Lewis into a permanent gig. Here's hoping we have more scenes of him sweating at the gym!

• Project Runway's Christopher Straub. Why? He won the very first runway challenge of season 6 despite, as he's quick to point out, having had no formal training or education in fashion. Also, the Minnesota native is sorta cute.

• True Blood's Lafayette (Nelsan Ellis). After his traumatic early season stint in a vampire dungeon, the Bon Temps fry cook seemed to have lost his mojo, but in the last few weeks he's roared back to life, coming to the rescue of his Maenad-possessed cousin Tara, holding "the worst mother-f@*#ing intervention in history."
  

• Finally, we have Danyl Johnson, the 27-year-old public school teacher from Reading, England who auditioned this week on Britain's X-Factor and may just be this year's Susan Boyle (only with slightly less bushy eyebrows). In addition to his amazing vocal talent and commanding stage presence, Danyl also freely admits to the press that he likes both boys and girls. He's an unapologetic bisexual, and it will be interesting to see how that plays with X-Factor voters. He has certainly made a lot of online fans (the web video of his audition has already gotten over a million hits. You can check it out here.

Danyl Johnson performs "With a Little Help from My Friends" on X-Factor August 22nd, 2009

Vote for your favorite by 10 PM EDT Today. And be sure to check back for tomorrow's BGWE column to see which network gay our readers have carried to glory!