Seattle Grace Hospital is no place for gay people. Entertainment Weekly's Michael Ausiello broke the news yesterday that Brooke Smith, who plays cardiac surgeon and new lesbian Erica Hahn on Grey's Anatomy, has been fired from the show, with her last episode airing this Thursday. ABC executives are rumoured to have disliked Smith's gay storyline with Sara Ramirez (Dr. Callie Torres), prompting the network to drop Smith from the show.

"I was very excited when they told me that Erica and Callie were going to have this relationship. And I really hoped we were going to show what happens when two women fall in love and that they were going to treat it like any heterosexual couple on TV," Smith told Ausiello yesterday. "And so I was surprised and disappointed when they just suddenly told me that they couldn't write for my character anymore."

Network execs were reportedly so unimpressed with Smith's character that she doesn't even get a proper sendoff.

"They don't really give her a goodbye," an ABC insider told Kristin Dos Santos of E! News. "It ends rather abruptly."

In an official statement, Grey's Anatomy executive producer Shonda Rhimes asserted that the reasons behind Smith's firing had nothing to do with her character's sexual orientation.

"Brooke Smith was obviously not fired for playing a lesbian. Clearly it's not an issue as we have a lesbian character on the show – Calliope Torres," said Rhimes. "Sara Ramirez is an incredible comedic and dramatic actress and we wanted to be able to play up her magic. Unfortunately, we did not find that the magic and chemistry with Brooke's character would sustain in the long run."

However, Rhimes' insistence that the network has no issues with gay characters comes on the heels of a new report from E! News that claims a new Grey's Anatomy character played by Melissa George has been rewritten to exclude any homosexual behaviour.

"Melissa came on as a lesbian character," a source tells E!'s Dos Santos. "But they changed the script and now she isn't. She starts off flirting with Callie but it never goes anywhere."

The news is just another example of ABC shying away from controversial, sexuality-themed storylines this year; at the end of last season, the network let go of Rebecca Romijn, who plays transgendered media mogul Alexis Meade on Ugly Betty. Although the actress returned for only a handful of episodes this season, her character was last seen shipping off to France, ostensibly for good.

What's all the fuss about, ABC? Do you only like your gay people as asexual sidekicks to your heterosexual main characters?

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