Excerpt From The San Francisco Bay Times

GLAAD Media Awards Features Kim Coles and Katherine McPhee

By Dennis McMillan

Published: May 3, 2007

Michelle Clunie of Queer As Folk, presented the Davidson/Valentini Award to fellow QAF actor, Robert Gant. The award - named after Craig Davidson, GLAAD’s first executive director, and his partner, Michael Valentini – is given to an openly LGBT media professional who has made a significant difference in promoting equal rights for the queer community. “My good friend and former litigator, Robert, returned to his true passion of acting,” Clunie said. “He was offered numerous roles on television and made his defining moment when Leah Thompson opened her door on Caroline in the City, to reveal her date. But his real defining moment came in 2001 when he courageously and fearlessly accepted the role of Ben Bruckner on Showtime’s Queer As Folk as the first-ever HIV-positive male character on TV with an active love life and sex life.”

She said when Gant came out openly in The Advocate magazine in 2002, he firmly established himself as an actor whose honesty matched his talent. Since QAF wrapped in 2005, he has continued acting while also moving behind the camera with the creation of Mythgarden Productions, which produced the gay-themed film, Save Me, a selection of the 2007 Sundance Film Festival. His philanthropic activity has garnered him major awards from agencies such as The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force and the Human Rights Campaign.

Gant said he was thrilled that in February 2004, as they were filming the same-sex marriage ceremony of Ben and Michael (the first such event ever on TV), it was the time of Mayor Gavin Newsom officiating same-sex marriages in San Francisco. He queried, “How does this happen? That some overweight gay kid with a painfully low self esteem from a blue collar family in Tampa, Florida ends up on a stage in San Francisco recognized for his efforts on behalf of the advancement of equal rights for the LGBT queer community.” He added, “I couldn’t know then - as that little boy – that I could be proud as I am now to be a gay man, to have the opportunity to find ways to be of service to my fellows, to stand with my brothers and sisters as we walk the path towards equality.” He concluded, “We live more openly, freely, and out loud than we ever have by far, and yet we’ve only begun.”