We touched base with Poppy Champlin before she would return to San Diego for Pride comedy night presented by HRC. If you missed her show at the Celebration Under the Sky, Stepping Stone’s 2010 gala, check out her latest Showtime Special: "Pride", and the Logo Special: "One Night Stand-Up" to get a feel of what’s to be served at Stand Up for Equality! No shows are alike.

I am here to tell you a horrible tale of a curse that touched thousands, perhaps millions of people through television. It plagues producers, directors, and actors. Perhaps it’s the actresses who have suffered the most...under the curse of The L Word.

Sometime during the third season as the first veterans of the L Word shuffled off into different productions, hanging up their gay-for-pay caps, the curse was unleashed. Somewhere written in digital code was the determination: All Your Future Works Will Fail.

In November, 2009, I sailed with about two dozen journalists of the gay press and 1,200 lesbians through hurricane Ida. It was on this memorable Sweet cruise that we learned that Meredith Baxter, the beloved TV mom of Family Ties, was on board with us - and her partner! On the last night of Sweet's inaugural voyage, Comedienne Suzanne Westenhoefer closed her act quoting Harvey Milk, “Come out. If you’re not out, come out!” This moment would change Meredith Baxter’s life.

Of all the television shows out there, The Good Wife doesn’t exactly scream for a lesbian audience. Procedurals really aren’t our thing in these post-Cagney and Lacey days. As a counterculture, I think we lesbians have learned by disappointing experience after crestfallen experience that a tough girl attitude, badass clothing, and all other trappings of procedural drama (uniforms, ladies pantsuits, cuffs and guns…) do make not a lesbian character.