Homosexuality in the media of different cultures

Okay, obviously, I am not the first person to ever have an opinion or a question about this subject.  How homosexuality is portrayed, if it is portrayed, in popular media is a subject of constant discussion, particularly what that portrayal means about society.  However, something I have always enjoyed discussing and thinking about is how that portrayal and what it means about society changes in the media of different countries.  To be fair, I don't watch a lot of mainstream television, and I'm not a scholar or anything, so these opinions are completely unqualified... but I would love to hear what you guys think on the subject.

Primarily, the TV show that gets me thinking about this is the British program "Doctor Who," a long-running science fiction series dating back to the 1960s (it's sort of a British "Star Trek," in my book).  All I have actually seen of "Doctor Who" is the new series, which started in 2005, so that is all my comments can be applied to.  But insofar as the new series goes, something I have been extremely impressed with is the willingness of the show to feature homosexual characters and couples.  This is not really any big news, since there's a good number of American shows that do the same nowadays.  What impresses me about "Doctor Who" specifically is that it doesn't really make a point out of the presence of homosexuality on the show... it's just there.  For example, in the first 15 seconds of this clip from the episode "Gridlock," we meet the so-called "Carsidi Sisters," in reality a married lesbian couple.  The couple are not main characters and do not appear for more than 3 minutes total screen time in this single episode.  This is not to say that the show's writers or the BBC are afraid of giving too major a nod to homosexuality, as seen by the example of Captain Jack Harkness, a major character for several episodes in multiple seasons as well as the star of his own spin-off show, "Torchwood," who is described multiple times as "omnisexual" - a word that takes on an even broader meaning in a science fiction context.  The Carsidi Sisters, then, do not demonstrate a lack of willingness to feature homosexuality in a major role, but a lack of need.  What I find impressive about them, and other characters in the show like them (there are several) is that they demonstrate homosexuality as just a part of everyday life.  "Doctor Who" shows that it condones homosexuality not by making an example of having gay characters, as is in my opinion the tendency of American shows (Kurt from Glee is a good example), but by treating homosexuality casually.  To me, this is in many ways a more powerful way of proving a point than featuring homosexuality deliberately.  And though I'm not actually sure what the public opinion of homosexuality is like in Britain, I find that "Doctor Who" points towards something very positive.

Aside from American and British TV, the only other example of homosexuality in different countries' media that I am familiar with is in Japanese animation, or anime.  This however is an example of the cultural gap not because anime reflects Japanese values about homosexuality, but because it doesn't even remotely.  In many anime and manga (Japanese comic books), gay individuals and couples are common. How open the individual or couple is varies, but it's certainly there.  What's odd about this is that in Japanese culture, homosexuality is not condoned at all, even frowned upon strongly.  There is a complete disconnect in Japan between media and reality.

As I said, any other opinions on this subject are heartily appreciated.  I'm certainly not the ultimate source of knowledge on this subject, and there are tons of holes in what I know, so if somebody knows more I would love to be corrected.