Will (Eric McCormack), left, and James (Taye Diggs) get set for a scorcher of an interracial, homosexual kiss on tonight's Will & Grace.

In a few short months, Will & Grace will be history. Look for the series to go out with a bang.

Literally. Taye Diggs (Kevin Hill), who guested last week, returns tonight as James, Will's hunky Canuck temptation. Grace (Debra Messing) agrees to marry the dude so he can get his Green Card and stay in the States. They say their "I dos" and, thanks to Karen (Megan Mullally), Hall & Oates performs Maneater at their wedding. Then Grace steps aside so Will and James can enjoy the honeymoon. Tonight's episode ends with Will and James locked in a scorcher of an interracial, homosexual kiss.

Think of it as the show's way of celebrating Black History month.

After seven seasons of jokes and innuendo, Will & Grace is about to go all Brokeback Mountain on America. Is America ready? Whatever, says McCormack, who shrugged off questions last month in L.A. on the set of his series.

"I've earned it," says McCormack of his make out scene with Diggs. "The character's earned it and the show's earned it."

And if Canadian and American viewers go "eww!" when they see the scene, "they haven't been as emotionally involved in the show as they thought they were," says McCormack.

For years he's heard critics say that Will & Grace goes either too far or not far enough in its depiction of gay sex life. "First of all, nobody wants to see sitcom characters have sex," says McCormack. "I didn't even want to see the Sex And The City girls have sex. This is not why I watch a comedy."

The Toronto-born actor remembers that when Will & Grace had its first press launch seven seasons ago the cast was told to downplay the gay storyline. "This is a show about friendship," NBC coached.

McCormack says the network was afraid America would reject the series right from the start. "It just didn't happen," he said. "The next thing you know, the gay of the show is allowed to have its own life. It was not something we had to hide or play up too much."

Times have changed. Back in the '60s, only The Flintstones were allowed to have a "gay old time." In the '90s, Ellen DeGeneres came out and got cancelled. Networks were still skittish about gay characters and storylines.

Now Will & Grace is seen Monday to Friday afternoons in syndication all across North America. "The number of people in the Midwest that now watch a show with two gay characters, I think, is remarkable," says McCormack.

Ask any Dutch cartoonist: The new taboo is religion. Reports that Will & Grace was planning to feature guest star Britney Spears as a Christian TV talk show host have been retracted by NBC. American Family Association advocates flipped when they heard the episode, scheduled for the day before Good Friday, was going to feature Spears in a TV cooking show called "Crucifixin's." (NBC -- which quickly bailed on Book Of Daniel after an ad boycott this winter -- now says Spears' character is being re-written).

The fact that the same joke has already played on both The Simpsons and Arrested Development without so much as a "D-oh!" shows that Will & Grace is still a red flag series for some special interest groups.

Just don't tell McCormack his show changed everything. He can't believe it when red carpet reporters ask him if there would have been a Brokeback Mountain without Will & Grace. "Wait a minute, this is insane," he said. "We've never taken that kind of credit.'"