Was just making a list of gay American sitcom characters:
So far I've got -
Roseanne's boss and mother in Roseanne
Ross' wife in Friends
Will and Jack in Will and Grace
and Smithers in The Simpsons

Can anyone think of any others?

Roy's son on Wings (Don't know if that counts. He only appeared twice.)

Patty on The Simpsons

the couple on It's All Relative

Billy Crystal as Jodie Dallas - SOAP.
When the show premiered Jodie was a very "light in the loafers" protrayal of a gay character although as the show went on he became a more masculine man who happened to be gay (and who eventually liked women too. His relationship with Carol produced a daughter)

This doesn't exactly answer your question, but one could make a case that there were a lot of ambiguous characters on shows before the coming out era of the late 80s: Monroe on Too Close for Comfort, Uncle Arthur on Bewitched, Claymore on The Ghost and Mrs Muir. An awful lot of shows had side characters who had the mannerisms or demeanor of the opposite sex: Ms. Jane on Beverly Hillbillies was one. Any of those characters on tv now would have been portrayed as openly homosexual.

Originally posted by jamesanthony
This doesn't exactly answer your question, but one could make a case that there were a lot of ambiguous characters on shows before the coming out era of the late 80s: Monroe on Too Close for Comfort, Uncle Arthur on Bewitched, Claymore on The Ghost and Mrs Muir. An awful lot of shows had side characters who had the mannerisms or demeanor of the opposite sex: Ms. Jane on Beverly Hillbillies was one. Any of those characters on tv now would have been portrayed as openly homosexual.

This is a very interesting topic and let's not forget Ellen as well as the ambiguous Gomer Pyle and Anthony on Designing Women.

Stanford and Anthony on Sex And The City
Ellen on Ellen
Paul's sister on Mad About You (she wasn't a regular tho)

Originally posted by boechsner
This is a very interesting topic and let's not forget Ellen as well as the ambiguous Gomer Pyle and Anthony on Designing Women.

didn't they give Anthony a girlfriend (I think Jackee played her) towards the very end of Designing Women?

Funny, Gomer Pyle never seemed gay to me, more like what they call a slow-wit (someone who was mentally ********). He had a girlfriend on the show too.

Anthony on Designing Women dated Olivia Brown, almost married Jackee Harry and then eloped with Sheryl Lee Ralph. Except for the weird Olivia Brown character he had good taste in women, although it makes you wonder why he never had any flirtations with any of his employers. If this show were made now he would be homosexual.

Originally posted by jamesanthony
This doesn't exactly answer your question, but one could make a case that there were a lot of ambiguous characters on shows before the coming out era of the late 80s: Monroe on Too Close for Comfort, Uncle Arthur on Bewitched, Claymore on The Ghost and Mrs Muir. An awful lot of shows had side characters who had the mannerisms or demeanor of the opposite sex: Ms. Jane on Beverly Hillbillies was one. Any of those characters on tv now would have been portrayed as openly homosexual.

Ms. Jane had the hots for Jethro, so I wouldn't put her in this category.

Ms Jane liked Jethro? I didn't know that. I didn't mean that she was gay, but her facial features were very masculine to me. There are a lot of characters who seemed to have the attributes of the opposite sex, but the characters were heterosexual. For some reason I'm thinking of Joe Besser, he was one of the Curly replacements in the Three Stooges in the late 50s. He seemed feminine acting to me, but he certainly wasn't a gay character.

I notice that the gay characters on a lot of the more current shows don't necessarily act girlish. Michael Boatman didn't act much different in Spin City than he did in other parts. And a lot of the lesbian characters are indistinguishable from the straight female characters in their mannerisms.

Would crossdressers count in this survey? TV has had transvestites just about from the start. Everyone from Milton Berle to Lucille Ball, Carol Burnett and Flip Wilson have dressed in the drag for a laugh.

The Facts of Life.

In the first episode, Blair accused Cindy of being gay because she was a Tomboy who liked being affectionate with other girls.