Cybill Shepherd and Lee Daniels were
honored for their gay advocacy Saturday night at the final
installment of the 21st annual GLAAD
Media Awards in San Francisco.
Shepherd, who played lesbian for three
season on Showtime's groundbreaking drama The L Word,
was given the Golden Gate Award, while openly gay Precious
director Daniels took home the Davidson/Valentini Award.
Wilson Cruz and Jai Rodriguez joined
the show's host writer-comedian Bruce Vilanch on the stage.
Lady Gaga won in the Outstanding Music
Artist category for her most recent album The Fame Monster.
Chely Wright – the 39-year-old
country music star who recently came out lesbian – performed
for the crowd. Also performing was Australian recording artist Sam
Sparro, who announced he is gay on the cover of Australian gay glossy
Attitude in 2008.
Ask Not, a documentary on the
military's ban on open service, won in the Outstanding Documentary
category, while The Stonewall Riots: 40 Years Later, a film
that chronicles the gay rights movement, took home the Outstanding
Digital Journalism prize.
Robert Hanson, president of Levi
Strauss Americas, was given the San Francisco Local Hero Award for
championing marriage equality in the business community.
The GLAAD Media Awards recognize
excellence in 41 categories including newspaper content, syndicated
columnists and comic books. Awards were rolled out in a series of
ceremonies. ABC
took home the most awards in television during a New York ceremony in
March. During the award's
second installment in Los Angeles, Director Tom Ford's film about
a gay man's journey after the loss of his lover, A Single Man,
won for outstanding film.