Soap Opera to showcase first lesbian kiss

Apr 15, 2003 | Bianca of ABC's "All My Children" soon will share what is billed as daytime television's first same-sex kiss.

This bit of history is scheduled to be made April 23 on the long-running soap, according to the network. She will share an on-screen kiss with Lena (Olga Sosnovska) "in a moment of truth and true love," ABC said.

Bianca Montgomery (Eden Riegel), who came out as a lesbian in October 2000, is the youngest daughter of Erica Kane (played by daytime diva Susan Lucci).

"The theme of `All My Children' from the beginning is the belief that, as God's children, we are all bound to each other by our common humanity despite our many personal differences," said Agnes Nixon, the series' creator. "The Bianca story is our latest effort to dramatize that belief."

But prime time beat daytime by at least a dozen years.

On a February 1991 episode of "L.A. Law," two of the NBC drama's regular characters exchanged a kiss that, at the time, gay activists said may have been a first for commercial network television. Attorneys C.J. Lamb (Amanda Donohoe) and Abby Perkins (Michele Greene) kissed as they hugged after succeeding with a plan to win Abby a raise.

• View blog reactions