In the long-fought battle between New York and Los Angeles, New York has finally won. In terms of which city is better for openly gay actors, at least. After Elton runs a feature today interviewing various gay thespians (redunnndant) about the trials and tribulations of both playing dress up and publicly doing it with men. And one thing is made abundantly clear. Los Angeles has a long and noble history of shaming its gay players into sham hetero relationships and degrading game show appearances, while New York has always let its freak pflag fly and welcomed queers with open arms: "Everyone knows everyone, and it's fantastic. No one cares if you're gay," says homo actor Christopher Sieber (best known for playing the Olsen twins' dad on the important sitcom Two of a Kind) of his experiences in New York City. Adds Xanadu actor Cheyenne Jackson, "People know if you've got the goods, if you're easy to work with, and if you can get the job done. Besides it's New York theater. Everybody's gay!" Except sometimes even New York isn't perfect:

According to Bryan Batt, a longtime theater actor who now plays a closeted gay man on AMC's critical darling Mad Men, he never saw much obvious anti-gay prejudice in the theater community. But even in New York, he's known agents to counsel actors to stay closeted if they wanted to play straight roles. And when he was cast as the understudy for the male lead in Sunset Boulevard opposite Glenn Close and Betty Buckley, Batt remembers concern on the part of some that he couldn't play a convincing heterosexual. "There is this preconceived notion your [gay] personality is going to come through," he says. "But what's the difference, you're playing a role. How many straight men are playing gay, but that's okay?"

Terrible. Though, none of this is really news. It's just good to remind everyone that, yes, they can get married. But we can play pretend.