Anyone who wants to appreciate the differences between cable and network television in speaking to the cultural diversity of American life need look no further than the way the two realms have dealt with June as Gay Pride Month.

While cable channels like Sundance, Showtime and Nickelodeon have offered an array of films, specials and series exploring gay and lesbian identity, network television has mostly ignored the matter.

Cable adds to its credit tonight with an MTV documentary, True Life: I'm Coming Out, which chronicles the experience of four young adults telling their parents that they are gay. The moments of revelation are painful, poignant, awkward, brave, happy and sad.

Capturing some of that would be enough to make for a successful documentary, but this one does something even better: It includes follow-up conversations with these young adults - conversations that preclude easy answers and falsely upbeat messages about how being honest or true to yourself will make everything all right.

True Life: I'm Coming Out seems concerned about trying to tell a fuller truth about what it means to be gay in America.

Take the case of Joel, a 19-year-old Filipino-American from California. He's senior class president, a standout in soccer and popular with girls. But Joel has known since middle school that he's gay.

He's tried to signal it to his divorced parents with posters of male movie stars on his bedroom walls and a gay pride flag in his closet, but his mother, with whom he lives, has looked the other way. Joel decides to tell his dad, and invites him to a lunchtime tennis match to break the news.

Obviously, there is a certain artifice or un-naturalness to any situation when cameras are present. But it's not as simple as the bromide, "Cameras change everything."

That was partially true in the 1950s and '60s, when on-scene TV news cameras - hulking contraptions at the time - were the exception. But thanks to the digital technology that makes for palm-sized cameras, and a generation of teen-agers that has grown up with cameras everywhere, the relationship between the camera and reality is not so easily explained these days.

Generation appears to play a major role in how one reacts to the presence of cameras in this documentary. While Joel seems to forget about the camera at the coming-out luncheon, his father only does so when Joel actually announces that he is gay. Dad's reaction is a pleasant surprise: He says he already guessed as much and makes sure that Joel knows he loves him.

But it does not go nearly as well when Joel tries to tell his mother. Forget the camera crew; Joel decides that the only way he's going to get this on film is if he himself brings a small camera to record it.

The first session at breakfast ends with Joel deciding not to make the announcement after all. He does tell her a few days later, and it's pretty awful. His mother clearly doesn't want to hear it. When she does, she tells him that being gay is "contagious," and blames his father for not being more of male presence in his life.

Joel tries to argue against such illogic. Then he begs for a little support from mom. But none is forthcoming. It's a sad scene, only partially redeemed by an ending to the film that includes Joel taking the gay flag out of his closet and hanging it in his room.

Dora, a 17-year-old Latina from Midland, Texas, seems to get a lot of support from her father when she tells him she's a lesbian. His response is mainly concern for her safety, given what he sees as the hostility to lesbians and gays on the part of Midland's majority culture.

But the next day, Dora tells us a different story. She says once the cameras were turned off, her father got "depressed" and refused to talk to her about her announcement. She gets some support from a friend at school.

Jaycee, 24, a Mormon, turns to his church for support. Not only does he not find any, he tells a tale of being physically abused during "aversion therapy" by a "counselor" to whom he was sent by the church.

Matt, a 20-year-old college student from New Jersey, informs his parents by e-mail. In the film, mom and dad sit side by side on a couch in their living room and cry their way through a re-reading of the e-mail for the MTV cameras.

Staged? Sure, but during the accompanying interview - in which Matt's mother recalls her feelings as she read the e-mail - the moment comes to life, and you can appreciate all the things she subsequently did right in embracing her son.

I'm Coming Out is almost as much about the parents as it is their adult children. There is much to be learned - even from the how-not-to-do-it examples - about handling confidences shared by and intimate moments with young people.

I'm not sure I'd want MTV cameras around at such a moment. And I suspect that, just as there were those who condemned Nickelodeon earlier this month for airing a discussion on same-sex parents, some will rip this documentary just because they don't like the frank discussion of sexual orientation that it involves.

But I applaud MTV for offering these scenarios and the bits of wisdom learned by these young adults.

"I guess you're going to have laughter and tears with it," Joel says at the end of the film. "You're going to have sad moments, and you're going to have happy moments when you come out. If you want a rainbow, you need rain and sunshine."

TV tonight

What: True Life: I'm Coming Out

When: Tonight at 10

Where: MTV

In brief: An intimate, real-life look at four young adults coming out as gays and lesbians