Rereading your initial post, Daniel, I noted your mention of Passions, a show with which I am not familiar. They actually had to change channels more than once because of a gay storyline/character? I guess I shouldn't be surprised--when I was growing up, it was not unusual to hear people react to homosexuality with undisguised contempt and loathing.
I am not certain why exactly it kept moving around. I believe CBS dropped it, then it was picked up for a bit by NBC, then dropped again and went to Sci-Fi channel for a bit (which is really weird), and then came back to CBS or wherever it is now. I'm not really certain about any of the channels except for the Sci-Fi thing. I could only surmise that the show was having difficulty finding or reaching a target demographic, and its viewership was down, which was why stations kept dropping it or trading it or whatever they were doing.
CORRECTION:
Passions began on NBC, and was for a very long time in the same time slot as
As the World Turns. It moved to Sci-Fi, then back to NBC, but can now only be found on Channel 101 on DirectTV. I'm still not certain why, but I imagine it was because
As the World Turns had a more captivating storyline, even though
Passions had the better looking guys, and thus ATWT had a wider viewership. After a little bit of research into the gay storyline that it had (has?), it seems like Vincent and Chad are a pursuit of the more adult themes of a gay storyline, while Luke and Noah's is more of a young love. Interesting enough,
Passions never aired a gay kiss as far as I am aware and seemed to focus intently on the "forbidden" types of romantic and sexual liaisons between Vincent and Chad, possibly because Chad was married to one of the other main female characters (you'll forgive me if I can't remember the names). I have not watched
Passions in some time and I had to do a bit of research to catch up with what is going on, but I think I remember a little bit of an unknown incest storyline, so it was kind of gross.