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The Internet has erupted with talk about NBC new hit series "Heroes," but instead of talking about who Claire's real parents are, or if Peter Petrelli is going to really blow up New York City, the chatter has taken an entirely different focus: Is Thomas Dekker's character of Zach gay?

You know, queer. Homosexual. A boi toy. Words and descriptions Dekker's manager apparently doesn't want to hear.

The "Heroes" episode "Homecoming" was not just about the homecoming dance where some of the heroes would have to save the cheerleader, it also was supposed to be where Zach -- in a Rosie O'Donnell moment -- tells the audience what we figured out already: He's gay. Instead, however, Zach spews out a bunch of non-sensical lines that continues to imply he's gay without really coming out (pun intended) and saying it.

The blog site After Elton speculates that NBC -- which reportedly already had problems with Zach as a gay character according to previous interviews with show creator Tim Kring and producer Bryan Fuller -- had something to do with why Zach went from gay to somewhere in between. The site also speculated that Dekker's management team also may have had something to do with the sudden change, something TV Guide's Michael Ausiello picked up on in his weekly Ask Ausiello column.

"Someone objected to the plot, and my sources tell me it was not NBC, but rather Dekker's camp that came down with a severe case of gay panic syndrome," Ausiello said. "In fact, there's speculation that Dekker's manager threatened to pull her client from the show unless the story was changed. Rather tellingly, said manager promised to get back to me with a comment yesterday but never did."

Kring himself has entered the most recent round of discussions, telling After Elton in an e-mail that the problem lied squarely on the complexities of putting together a show for network television.

"It was certainly not our intention to confuse the issue of Zach's character being gay," Kring told the Web site. "We have too much respect for our audience to do that intentionally. However, it has simply become too complicated behind the scenes to push this issue further with this particular character. We apologize for misleading the audience, and wish that we could have handled things better on our end."

So the question really is whether or not Zach is gay. How do we answer that? After Elton presented its own case for gayness.

"A few things are clear, and can be backed up by evidence from interviews with the show's creators and in the show's official publicity materials," said After Elton's Brian Juergens. "Zach was conceived as a gay character, he was developed as a gay character, and as of the Nov. 20 'Homecoming' episode, he was a gay character. And yet a decision was made by someone -- be it studio execs, talent management or otherwise -- to 'straighten him out.' "

According to After Elton, while Zach never says the words "I'm gay" in the "Homecoming" episode, an official recap on the NBC site later described the exchange as Zach telling Claire (Hayden Panettiere) that he's gay.

"At least it did," Juergens said. "NBC recently edited those words out of the transcript. If the network's own marketing efforts can't get the facts straight, it's not outlandish to think that millions of viewers may have been led to the same apparently erroneous conclusion."

The Web site also looks at the character's MySpace page, apparently created by NBC Unversal's marketing department. On the page, Zach's sexuality is listed as "not sure" while some of his favorite movies include "The Rocky Horror Picture Show," "Velvet Goldmine" and "Hedwig and the Angry Inch," stereotypically considered gay films.

While some might feel that arguing over a minor character's sexuality may be crying over spilt milk, Juergens expresses concerns that it could have further implications than that.

"It's nothing new for a television show to lead viewers along with misdirection and red herrings in order to keep them tuning in, but using a character's potential sexuality -- particularly a teen character -- flirts with exploitation," he said. "Is it advisable to engage the vested interests of young gay people at an extremely volatile and confusing time of their lives and then reveal that they had been identifying with someone who wasn't gay after all, but merely a marketing gimmick?"

Dekker recently was cast as John Connor in the new Terminator spinoff television series "The Sarah Connor Chronicles" from Fox Television. It has yet to be announced if Dekker will continue in his role as Zach in "Heroes," which airs Mondays at 9 p.m. ET on NBC. If he doesn't continue, it apparently will have nothing to do with his character's sexuality, but more likely because of where the "Heroes" story is going.