Out actors Cynthia Nixon and Jane Lynch are speaking out against Newsweek's gay Hollywood slam.

Speaking to MTV, Sex and the City 2 co-star Nixon called the piece “cruel”

“I think it's so horrible, and I think it's really, really, really terrific that there has been such an enormous response and so much back-and-forth and discussion about it and people trying to explain to this gentleman why they're so upset about what he wrote,” Nixon said.

The feature, titled Straight Jacket and written by openly gay Newsweek contributor Ramin Setoodeh, has drawn a mostly negative response for slamming gay actors who take on straight roles.

It's “OK for straight actors to play gay,” Setoodeh says referring to performances by Jake Gyllenhaal and Health Ledger in the 2005 gay cowboy romance flick Brokeback Mountain, but adds that “it's rare for someone to pull off the trick in reverse.”

He cuts into Sean Hayes' portrayal of straight man Chuck in the Broadway revival of Promises, Promises: “He comes off as wooden and insincere, like he's trying to hide something, which of course he is.” Hayes, who recently came out gay on the cover of gay glossy The Advocate, has been nominated for a Best Actor in a Musical Tony Award for his Broadway debut.

Setoodeh also takes aim at Jonathan Groff's performance on Fox's musical comedy hit Glee, saying he's “so distracting, I'm starting to wonder if Groff's character on the show is supposed to be secretly gay.”

Openly lesbian Glee co-star Jane Lynch told Katie Couric that she disagreed: “I applaud everybody's right to say what they think. And I think, you don't have to agree with him. And I don't.”

“I play straight people all the time and nobody's upset about it,” she added.

Openly gay Mad Men co-star Bryan Batt said the piece “saddened” him, adding that “gay actors have been playing straight since Euripides.”

The Screen Actors Guild (SAG), the nation's largest union for working actors, has also jumped into the fray.

“Unfortunately, harmful attitudes like those of Setoodeh are used to pressure actors to stay in the closet,” Jason Stuart, chair of the SAG National LGBT Actors Committee, a group that supports openly gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender actors, said in a statement.

Last week, the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) joined openly gay Glee creator Ryan Murphy in urging Newsweek to apologize. Murphy asked fans to dump Newsweek until an apology is at hand, and demanded the weekly apologize to Hayes and other “brave out actors who were cruelly singled out in his damaging, needlessly cruel, and mind-blowingly bigoted piece.”