Gay storyline coming to Days of Our Lives

As Days of Our Lives celebrates its 45th anniversary in daytime, the traditionally conservative soap is about to get a lot more contemporary.

EW has learned exclusively that a gay storyline may be in the works! From what we gather, it may involve a current cast member hooking up with someone new.

A show spokeswoman declined to comment.

While competing sudsers have been in the forefront when it comes to same-sex couples -- ABC's All My Children, for example, featured the first lesbian character in Bianca Montgomery (Eden Riegel), which led to the first gay marriage between her and Reese Williams (Tamara Braun) -- Days has largely played a backseat role when it comes to featuring gay couplings.

Meanwhile, current and previous cast members like Kristian Alfonzo (Hope Brady), Arianne Zucker (Nicole Walker) and Deidre Hall (Marlena Evans) have hit the road to help promote the book Days of our Lives 45: A Celebration in Photos.

--> As a 13-year watcher of Days, I'm glad to hear they're finally moving in the right direction. If they can have Marlena cloned and excorsized, NBC can certainly have two cute boys in love. In the words of Jack McFarland, "It's a gay network, for God's sake, the symbol is a peacock!"