Same-sex Springfield

The online gamblers were right: Marge's sister Patty was the character who revealed herself as gay on tonight's episode of The Simpsons, which boldly tackled the gay-marriage debate with a predictable mixture of poignance and hilarity.

It'll be interesting to see how fundamentalist Christians, some of whom have heaped praise on The Simpsons for being one of the few television programs to show the faithful in a positive light, react to an episode that was highly sympathetic to gay people and gay-marriage proponents. Maybe we'll come full circle back to the time when shrill critics warned that Bart would bring on the apocalypse by skateboarding and saying "eat my shorts."

Regardless, I'm impressed that the show is old enough to have a driver's license and yet has managed to remain both entertaining and relevant throughout its run. The Simpsons just continues to cement its place as the best cartoon program in television history.