GLAAD Reacts to Two and a Half Men's Gay Twist

CBS Entertainment Chairman Nina Tassler revealed Thursday morning that the final season of Two and a Half Men, Chuck Lorre's long-running comedy, would include a fake gay relationship between Walden (Ashton Kutcher) and Alan (Jon Cryer), which they undertake in order to adopt a child.

"Walden is going to have a major health scare and it is going to give him a little bit of an existential crisis," Tassler told reporters after her executive session at the Television Critics Association's fall previews. "He wants to find a way to add more meaning to his life, so he decides he wants to adopt a child. In doing so, he starts the process and he realizes that it's very difficult, to adopt a child as a single, straight man. So, once and for all, he decides, 'I'm going to propose to Alan, we're going to get married and adopt a child as a gay couple.'"'

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Though Tassler believed the storyline would send a "positive statement' and she wouldn't receive backlash from the LGBT community, some tweeters were quick to criticize Men for exploiting rights that the community has fought so hard to obtain and, in some states, still do not have.  

GLAAD declined to comment directly on the story line until seeing the finished product, but Sarah Kate Ellis, the organization's president and CEO, released a statement on Thursday morning in response. "We hope the show will acknowledge not only the progress made in acceptance of gay and lesbian couples, but also the fact that — in many areas of the country — same-sex couples are often under greater scrutiny or still barred from adoption options that straight couples have."

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