GLAAD Honors Those Who Support and Highlight Gay Marriage

Gay media group GLAAD honored the television series, Brothers & Sisters, and actress Cynthia Nixon, among others, for highlighting gay marriage rights.

"We are bringing marriage back to its fundamentals and revitalizing it from its roots up," Sex and the City actress Nixon said in accepting her honorary award at the 21st annual Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation Media Awards.

ABC drama series Brothers & Sisters won the outstanding drama series award for their story line of a gay married couple looking to start a family.

Actress Sigourney Weaver also accepted the award for outstanding TV miniseries for Lifetime's Prayers for Bobby. In the movie, based on a true story, Weaver played a 1970s religious housewife who struggles to accept her son is gay.

The Oprah Winfrey Show won the best talk show episode category for the episode, "Ellen DeGeneres and Her Wife, Portia de Rossi."

Spanish-British film Little Ashes won for outstanding film in limited release, while other winners for their coverage of gay and lesbian issues included MSNBC's The Rachel Maddow Show, NBC, the New York Times, CNN and ESPN.com.

Joy Behar, a co-host of ABC's The View, received the excellence in media award for bringing up gay rights on the popular daytime talk show.

Despite all the other awards given, it was truly Nixon’s night, who in 2009 announced at a gay marriage rally that she and her education activist girlfriend were engaged. She won the Vito Russo Award, named for the late gay activist and film historian.

GLAAD was founded more than 20 years ago to showcase positive images of the lives of gay people in the wake of sensational media reporting on AIDS and other topics.

Other awards will also be presented in Los Angeles in April and San Francisco in June.