John Mahoney has a role on tonight's "ER" that is a dramatic deparfure from his best-known part as Marftin Crane, the father of the fussy Niles and "Frazier" Crane. He plays an aging drag queen on the medical drama whose partner is still in the closet. The partner is brought to the hospital with congestive heart failure. He's not only coping with the partner's health crisis, but he is forced to fight his family to keep him alive. The episode illustrates how vulnerable gay couples are legally since they cannot be legally married in almost all U.S. states. It's a reminder of how important it is to legalize a committed relationship as much as possible with such things as domestic partnerships and power of attorney etc.

As for Mahoney, he has played gay before, most notabely on the memorable indie "The Broken Hearts Club" where he was a restaurant owner and coach of a gay softball team that included characters played by Zach Braff, Timothy Olyphant and Dean Cain.