These names: gay, queer, homosexual are limiting. I would love to finish with them. We're going to have to decide which terms to use and where we use them. For me to use the word "queer" is a liberation; it was a word that frightened me, but no longer.
I have a friend who is around my age, a little younger, and she's gay and came out to her own community when she was younger but not to her family and to the community at large.
Our intention is to really explore this transition and, beyond that, explore the particular things that someone comes up against when they're gay or lesbian.
I do not think our priorities are misplaced when we are looking at creating a whole new class of children from these gay marriages who could end up completely dependent on the State, on the taxpayers - the American people.
I don't think Ripley is gay. He appreciates good looks in other men, that's true. But he's married in later books. I'm not saying he's very strong in the sex department. But he makes it in bed with his wife.
And I'd like to believe that's true, you know, kind of showing gay people in this kind of light and - where it's not about that, it's just about the characters for the first time, like those shows were.
The writers have slowly taken the show, with subjects other gay shows have dived right into, slowly. It was over a year before Will even started to date.
But when I did think about it and looked at the whole package - the producers behind the show, the writers, the cast I would be working with - I would have been a fool to turn it down just because the role for me was another gay role.
They might have a long way to go before truly accepting gay people into their lives, but they have accepted the show into their living rooms each and every week.
