America's animated philosopher Homer Simpson has held forth on one of the country's most divisive social and political issues - gay marriages. It seems he supports them much to the chagrin of conservative America.

In the television show's episode titled "There is something about marrying", Simpson conducted dozens of same-sex marriages and even his sister-in-law Patty Bouvier finally came out of the closet.

Patty's sexual preference was only hinted at but never quite revealed till Sunday night. The episode was broadcast with a parental advisory about the content because of its mature content.

The Simpsons have become a billion-dollar enterprise during the show's 15-year-hit run on Fox Network with the family, which is not just unapologetic but even upbeat about being dysfunctional.

Throughout its broadcast the show has taken positions on all major social, political and cultural issues, often going against the conventional wisdom and yet emerging a winner.

The fictional hometown of Springfield where the Simpsons and a host of other fictional characters, including the popular Indian grocery store owner Apu Nahasapeemapetilon, live, has become a sort of barometer of the real small town America where social, political and cultural mores are tested and debated.

Homer Simpson is an artless, tactless enfant terrible who thumbs his nose at every sacred cow in American society with never-failing humour. The latest episode had Homer acquire a licence to solemnise weddings to conduct gay marriages.

Now that the highly popular show has given its seal of approval to same-sex marriages, tongues are bound to be set wagging.

Despite the fact the show is broadcast on Fox Network, which also owns the pro-Republican Party Fox News, it has generally not toed its owners' political line.

Under the Bush administration gay marriages are not to be granted any legal sanctity of the level of normal marriages. President George W. Bush has steadfastly described marriage as a union between a man and woman.

In the fictional Springfield just as in the real San Francisco, gay marriages are legal now if only to attract tourists.

"It's saying to those who demonise homosexuality, or what they call the homosexual agenda, anything from 'Lighten up' to 'Get out of town'," Marty Kaplan, associate dean of the University of Southern California's Annenberg School of Communication, was quoted as saying by the New York Times.

Kaplan is host of a media show on the talk radio network Air America.

"It sounds as though they're saying that what the religious right calls 'the homosexualist agenda', as if it were creeping Satanism, is: these people are your neighbours in the Springfield that is America."

L. Brent Bozell III, president of the television watchdog Parents Television Council, told the paper, "At a time when the public mood is overwhelmingly against gay marriage, any show that promotes gay marriage is deliberately bucking the public mood," he said.

"I'd rather them not do it at all," he added.