Rufus Wainwright has won a GLAAD award for his 2007 album “Release the Stars.”

The Canadian-American singer-songwriter was named outstanding music artist at the 19th annual Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation Media Awards in New York Monday.

The GLAAD Media Awards are handed out to mainstream media outlets that foster positive images of gay and lesbian people.

Wainwright, who grew up and began his career in Montreal, has toured North America, Europe, Asia and Australia in support of “Release the Stars.” The album, his fifth studio release, has been certified gold in the U.K.

He also covered Judy Garland with a series of shows last year in which he performed the entire “Judy At Carnegie Hall” album.

Other winners at the GLAAD awards included an episode of “Boston Legal” titled “Do Tell,” about an openly gay man discharged from the army, and the movie “Stardust,” which featured Robert de Niro as a gay pirate.

Barbara Walters won an outstanding TV journalism award for the “20/20″ feature “My Secret Self: A Story of Transgender Children,” while another outstanding journalism award went to “60 Minutes” for the episode “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell.”

Judy Shepard, mother of Matthew Shepard, whose 1998 murder brought national attention to the issue of hate crime legislation, was given an honorary award for her activism in the years following her son’s death.






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