"people who are gay," vs. GAY PEOPLE

I'm Team DeGeneres all the way.

In a long video post on her blog, Rosie O'Donnell claims fellow out lesbian Ellen DeGeneres is not allowed to talk about anything "gay, gay gay!" on her daytime talk show. Mum's the L word?

In her video, Rosie claims Ellen signed a contract that forbids her to mention anything to do with gay issues, adding, "I talk about 'gay' because I like to and she doesn't talk about it because she doesn't want to or she can't."

TMZ contacted a rep for Telepictures, producers of "The Ellen DeGeneres Show," who jokingly said "She's gay? Who knew?" The rep then added that this is completely untrue, and that they have no such contracts with any of their hosts, saying,"Ellen is free to talk about whatever she wants and we encourage her to do so."

The Telepictures rep is correct (plus, how much do you love the style of that joke?). I'm not a regular watcher of Ellen's talk show, but without even thinking very hard I could think of three examples of her mentioning her own homosexuality, or gay issues on episodes that I have seen.

It's just that-unlike Rosie-Ellen does and says things that are worth admiring for reasons other than that she's gay, too. I am absolutely confident that her performance in Finding Nemo will live on long after people have forgotten Rosie's vocalizing in Tarzan (if that hasn't already happened)

When she does mentions her homosexuality, she's usually either being funny-she is a comic, after all-or she's just talking about her life (with Ellen, she's usually doing both, actually). I caught a recent episode where she was talking about the back incident that led her to do her show from a hospital-style bed.

In the course of telling the story, she made mention of her girlfriend, the v. hot Portia de Rossi (lucky girl, that Ellen), taking care of her. That the person taking care of her and sharing her life was another woman was part of the story and included as such, as it should have been.

What it was not was rammed down people's throats, let's-scare-the-hell-out-of-the-straights style. It's "people who are gay," vs. GAY PEOPLE, again.

It seems also worth mentioning that DeGeneres is an admired, succesful and award-winning performer, and rightly so, who brings her live-in girlfriend with her to events like the Emmys and People's Choice Awards.

Is it just my blinders as the straight boy that make me wonder what more she is supposed to be doing to help Advance The Homosexual Agenda?

And by the way...obviously I never watched Rosie O'Donnell's talk show when it was on, but via "the trickle down theory of pop culture," ISTR hearing something. Isn't it true that she spent a lot of time talking about her big, hot crush on dreamy Tom Cruise?

Never mind the fact that should have set off at least one or two irony alarms. Doesn't it make her criticizing DeGeneres for the way she chooses to live and talk about her life just a tad hypocritical?