Taking a chance on same-sex love

The Bravo cable network is going where no television dating show has gone before: matchmaking gay men.

“Boy Meets Boy,” a six-episode series that will premiere in July, also twists reality show conventions by secretly including straight men among the pool of dating prospects.

No dating show, from “Blind Date” to “The Bachelor,” has promoted same-sex unions, said Scott Seomin, entertainment media director for the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation. It appears “Boy Meets Boy” will handle it in a lighthearted, non-exploitive way, he said.

The show is being made by a gay producer, reality veteran Douglas Ross of Evolution Film & Tape Inc.

Already, the Traditional Values Coalition plans to alert its 43,000 member churches to protest the series, said Andrea Lafferty, the Washington-based group’s executive director. “Clearly, they’ve hit a new low,” Lafferty said.