NEW YORK (AP) — It was a night for being out and proud.

A ceremony that saw the Tony Award for best play go to a drama about a gay baseball player also had an on-camera kiss between a longtime male couple and references to same-sex partners.

Scott Wittman and Marc Shaiman won the Tony for best score for Hairspray, which features Harvey Fierstein in drag playing the role created for Divine in John Waters’ 1987 film.

Shaiman and Wittman have been professional and personal partners for 25 years. Shaiman declared his love for Wittman during his acceptance speech.

“I love this man,” he said during the June 8 ceremony at Radio City Music Hall. “We’re not allowed to get married in this world.... But I’d like to declare in front of all these people I love you and I’d like to live with you the rest of my life.”

He followed up with a kiss for Wittman.

Host Hugh Jackman referred to the kiss during a commercial break, and there was applause from audience members.

Later, speaking to media, Shaiman and Wittman said they were sure they weren’t the first gay couple to win a Tony. “But we’re the first maybe to not feel we had to keep it secret,” Shaiman said. “It feels good.”

When Denis O’Hare won the featured actor-play prize for his role in Take Me Out, he named his boyfriend during his list of thanks.

He said he had initially wondered whether he should. “I thought, ‘No, no, no, this is the whole point.’ The whole point is that we all have to risk something personal to make something happen,” he said.

Take Me Out won for best play.

O’Hare said he thinks all the openness and support at the show could affect American society.

“The more it’s talked about, the more it becomes commonplace, the less it becomes freakish. I think it’s a good thing,” he said.

Not that others haven’t mentioned partners, companions and lovers over the years at Tony ceremonies. During the 1983 Tony telecast, one of the producers of Torch Song Trilogy, which won best play, thanked his lover.

Besides references from those winners who are gay, there were words of support from others, including Margo Lion, lead producer for Hairspray.

“Thank you, Marc Shaiman, for saying yes and for convincing me that a domestic partnership could write a show and stay together,” Lion said.

Michele Pawk, who won the featured actress-play award for her performance in Hollywood Arms, said: “I have never been more proud to be a member of this community. Men kissing each other on stage. Drag queens. Children. It’s a perfect world. As it should be.”

GLBT San Diego was also represented at the Tony’s as the Old Globe’s openly gay artistic director, Jack O’Brien, won his first Tony Award for his direction of Hairspray. Old Globe board and staff members cheered for O’Brien from Trophy’s Grill in Mission Valley, where they watched the broadcast on a live feed.