the unqueering of ABC television

According to the GLAAD organization, the television network ABC had the second highest number of queer characters in prime time television. Featuring a queer married couple on Brothers and Sisters, and an emerging lesbian romance on Grey's Anatomy, ABC was on the fast track to represent real life with diversity.

http://www.glaad.org/eye/ontv/2008/overview.php

But, a few weeks ago news broke from the Grey's camp that they were discontinuing the romance between on-screen characters of Callie Torres (Sara Raimerz) and Erica Hahn (Brooke Smith). In fact, the network outright fired actress Brooke Smith. According to the creator of Greys, Shonda Rhimes, she was told by the network that she could no longer write for Brooke Smith's character. This news was released just a few days after Proposition 8 was passed in California, banning marriage between same sex couples.

Here's my point and pr related rant.
There are hundreds of blogs and youtube videos dedicated to protesting Grey's discontinuation of their romance. In fact, there are protests and boycotts of Grey's in full force.
The messaging that has come from ABC since it was announced that their lesbian romance was for all purposes, cancelled, has been non-existent. There has been no release from ABC explaining their actions, or attempting to retain their viewers.

In the past, ABC television has been known for having diverse casts and having the most amount of queer characters on their television shows. But in the past few years, ABC has been slowing dropping the number of queer characters. Instead of keeping up with their forward thinking, they've stepped into a backwards slide. Instead of being supportive of the queer community, they've alienated many members.
In the case of Grey's, the relationship between Callie and Erica was a later in life coming of age story. Some women spend most of their married lives, happily married to their husbands. Then sometimes changes internally, and they experience love with a woman. This is the path that their relationship was taking. The network was treated the development of their relationship with tact and respect.
But then something changed. And the word came down from the network to end the relationship. It makes me wonder what exactly was decided that changed the network's mind about this one relationship on one of their shows. Was it that the Mickey Mouse network (ABC is owned by the lovely folks at Disney) were afraid that with the passing of proposition 8 would negatively affect their viewerships?
Was the network aware that people weren't enjoying the relationship? Did Brooke Smith do something that we, the public, were not aware she had done? Clearly it must have been something serious enough to warrant firing.
According to internet rumours, these same rumours that confirmed that Brooke Smith had been fired, also indicate that other members of the cast, including Sara Raimerz are leaving part way through the season in response to their firing. In addition, the openly gay cast mate TR Knight's screen time has been slashed to very little.
Another random fun fact, is that none of the actors involved in this show has publicly commented on the firing. In fact, cast mate, Patrick Dempsey was on Ellen's talk show and pulled out a statement written by ABC. What was read just illustrated that Smith no longer was employed by ABC.
I understand that there is a lot of rumour and speculation about what's caused the ABC backlast and the so-called Brookegate. But let's be real. We are never going to hear what happened behind closed doors.
But here's my confusion. Several years ago, Isiah Washington called his co-worker TR Knight a degrogratory homophobia name. ABC wrote him out of the series in response to the public's distaste. Their mixed messaging between this incident and the so-called "Brookegate" is incredibily confusing.
So in one case, its wrong for one man to be homophobic. But its acceptable for a group of people running a television network to be homophobic.
I, like many others, am not sure that I want to watch where the show is heading. However, with one remaining queer character on Grey's, I still want to be supportive. I want to see how the network impacts the writing of the show and their impact on what actors are brought on.

So, in conclusion, the world isn't fair. Just when you think that things are looking up for one group, another group steps out of the shadow for their turn to get kicked.