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.

No one could have ever dreamed about how well the show would do.

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.

You don't have a face to work with, so your voice has to do all the work until you see the animation. So, a lot of it I had to pull back because it was too big.

I got one letter at the very beginning, like, in the first season, saying - from a woman who was very religious, very Christian, saying how wrong she thought the show was, but she thinks it's the funniest show on television.

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.

I actually like working with the other three actors on the show.

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.

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.

Nobody makes me laugh.

Through that, I got to know Jerry's work, and I am definitely his number-one fan right now, which is interesting because it usually works the other way around: you usually create a project based on your hero.

And I'm OK being judged as an actor.

And so, I think when I got to college, you discover who you are and find yourself more than you did before.

At the beginning of 'Will and Grace', I played Jack as the funny next-door-neighbor type, as we've seen in the past. And I thought that was my role.

Being an actor, the less people know about my personal life, the more open-minded they can be about each role I play.

But I'm guessing every actor is insecure.

I have the most nervous stomach in the world.

I like to be busy and I like to have places to go in the morning, when I get up.

I think because my life is so insane and it's constantly going at 120 miles per hour, my favorite thing to do is sit at home in front of the TV and check out.

I'm a huge sci-fi/fantasy/horror guy. I love anything in the sci-fi or fantasy genre.

No, my entire life is planned. It's called time management.

So get accomplished what you want to get accomplished in your life. And in the intervals, do what you can to help other people.

The thing about producing is that the pressure is off of being in front of the camera, and being critiqued and judged in that way, but there are other pressures producing.

When I came out of my mom's womb, I had 'sitcom' stamped on my forehead.

My cousins gay, he went to London only to find out that Big Ben was a clock.

I don't know of many evangelicals who want to deny gay couples their legal rights. However, most of us don't want to call it marriage, because we think that word has religious connotations, and we're not ready to see it used in ways that offend us.

The media seems to think only abortion and gay marriage are religious issues. Poverty is a moral issue, it's a faith issue, it's a religious issue.

I think the fact that I'm so well known to be gay makes it very difficult to have a convincing relationship with a woman on screen. It wouldn't be at all difficult for me to kiss a woman - I'll kiss a frog if you like.

I think my election is one of several indications that gay and lesbian folk are being brought more into the center of things. I'd like to think that my election signals my bringing of gay and lesbian folk into the center of the church.

I believe very firmly that gay people of every stripe and age should be role models for all children, and that means interacting with them.

In the case of my book, I don't think it's really the coming-out gay novel that everyone really needed, even though it was received as such. The boy is too creepy, he betrays his teacher, the only adult man with whom he's enjoyed a sexual experience, etc.

My mom doesn't get the whole gay thing, but she loves me.

When I first started editing GQ, it gave the impression of being, and in fact was, a gay magazine. There were female models in it and there were women on the cover, but the boys were always much, much more beautiful than the girls.

I was against gay marriage until I realized I didn't have to get one.

I was raised around heterosexuals, as all heterosexuals are, that's where us gay people come from... you heterosexuals.

I do not support a constitutional amendment to prohibit gay marriage.

We must make it clear that a platform of 'I hate gay men and women' is not a way to become president of the United States.

You know, gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender - people are people.

There are enormously gifted Episcopal priests around this church who are gay and lesbian, some of whom are partnered, who would make wonderful bishops and they're going to be nominated and they're going to be elected.

Straight people say, 'You know you're just gay,' and gay people say, 'You know you're just gay.' There is such a thing as bisexual!

In my career, there have been three things that were challenging: playing gay; playing a Jewish woman; and playing Chekhov. The scariest part was playing Chekhov!

And I used to go the punk clubs such as a gay club in Poland Street that everyone would go to because it was the only place you could go to looking like that without getting beaten senseless.

And I'm in favor of that because I have a gay son, who's a very successful theater designer.

It was a pleasure to be a gay eyesore.

There's nothing wrong with being gay. I have plenty of friends who are going to hell.

Another argument, vaguer and even less persuasive, is that gay marriage somehow does harm to heterosexual marriage. I have yet to meet anyone who can explain to me what this means. In what way would allowing same-sex partners to marry diminish the marriages of heterosexual couples?

I'm not ashamed of being gay, never have been and never will be. For that I have no apologies.

Christianity has made of death a terror which was unknown to the gay calmness of the Pagan.

Though gay lifestyles have certainly moved into the open, there's little evidence that society has become more open in its basic attitudes or that entertainers should feel cozy in emerging from the velvet underground.