Straight outta Jersey.

A gay brother helps queer the humor of Kevin Smith's Clerks (now a TV cartoon) and chasing Amy (new DVD)

For a straight dude, Kevin Smith can get awfully queer. Check out the writer-director's new ABC TV series, Clerks--an animated spin-off of his popular black-and-white comedy about a couple of motor-mouthed convenience-store slackers. In an episode that was scheduled to air June 14, a freewheeling parody of the movie Outbreak, Dante (voiced by Brian O'Halloran) saves Leonardo, N.J., by pretending to be a homosexual. "Local Gay Saves Town," blares the hometown rag's headline--much to Dante's chagrin.

Or take another look at last year's Dogma, Smith's playful dissection of Catholic theology: Jay (of the scruffy duo Jay and Silent Bob, played by Jason Mewes and Smith in all of Smith's films to date) challenges Rufus (Chris Rock), the 13th apostle, to reveal one of Jay's secrets; Rufus announces that Jay masturbates to images of guys.

And page through Jay & Silent Bob: Chasing Dogma (Oni Press, $11.95), a compendium of the adventures of, well, Jay and Silent Bob. "I'm here! I'm queer! Get used to it!" shouts the homy and ostensibly hetero Jay, going off into a gay rights rant after he's mistakenly accused of taking carnal advantage of Silent Bob.

"Periodically, I'll hear from a fan who says, `Hey, man, why'd you make Jay queer all of a sudden?'" laughs the irreverent Smith, 29. "I'll just say, `Dude, calm down.' Jay--who's always talking about women--is a character a lot of young hetero guys identify with. But I think Jay's really ambisexual. So it's nice to throw them a curveball to open up their perspective a bit. If I can lead a few cats into being a bit more tolerant, I feel pretty good."

Smith admits he wasn't always so enlightened himself. "! grew up in suburban New Jersey where [homosexuality] wasn't the thing to talk about--it was a clamped-down culture," he recalls. And, in retrospect, there's an exchange in Clerks where Jay calls Dante "a fucking faggot" that he now finds "kind of harsh."

But even before he made Clerks, Smith discovered his older brother Donald (who currently lives with his partner in Orlando, Fla.) was gay. "My mother told me before my brother had a chance, which always bugged me," he remembers. "I was filled with a sense of sadness that he hadn't told me because he thought I was a homophobic moron. But when we started talking, we got into a conversation like I've never had in my life. Here was a dude on the inside who could tell me all sorts of stories--ranging from hard-core bathroom-sex stories to relationship stories. It was just like talking to your friend about sex, except your friend happens to be talking about fucking the same gender."

When Smith's brother Donald married his partner, Jerry, in '94, Smith--himself married and the father of a baby girl--witnessed "the hard-core--best wedding I've ever been to. They threw a hell of a bash. Just at that point in the wedding when things start slowing down and it's kind of let's-get-out-of-here, boom, there was a drag show. He's a dude who knows how to do it with style and class."

Smith's gay-friendly credentials solidified at his 1994 Sundance debut with Clerks, where he befriended Guinevere Turner, the writer-star of Go Fish. "We became friends," he says. "She was my first lesbian peer." When he finished his screenplay for his 1997 film Chasing Amy (just released on DVD), "Guin was the first person I sent it to. I needed her to tell me if there was anything that rang really false."

In Amy Smith plunged into the realm of sexual ambiguities. When straight comic-book artist Holden (Affleck) falls in love with lesbian Alyssa (Joey Lauren Adams), Holden's professional partner, Banky (Jason Lee), is immediately threatened. And while Alyssa can't love Holden back, Banky realizes that perhaps he's a little queer on his bro himself.

"With Holden and Banky, it always felt to me like a marriage without the sex," Smith explains. "All it takes is a nudge from Holden to bring it to a head. Contrary to popular belief, I don't think we're 100% one thing or the other. You always have a degree of curiosity, whether you're straight or gay. You always hear about girls who one night get a little kooky and start fooling around, but you never hear about guy friends doing the same thing. But what's the difference? It's just something guy-guys don't talk about with each other."

Smith says with a laugh, "I'm sure there's a GLAAD award somewhere in my future."

Kilday is a freelance entertainment reporter who contributes to Variety and TV Guide.