Lohan and Ronson called into the radio show Loveline to chat with DJ Ted Stryker about DJ AM’s recent survival of a plane crash that killed four other passengers.

In wrapping up the conversation, Stryker casually asked Lindsay on air, “Now, you guys, you and Samantha have been going out for how long now? Like two years? One year? Five months? Two months?” Lohan responded, “A long…a very long time.”

“I hope you guys stay together, you’re a very lovely looking couple,” Stryker added, to which Lindsay replied, “Thank you very much.”

Lohan and Ronson are among only a handful of high-profile American celebrities in same-sex relationships, including women like Ellen DeGeneres, Portia de Rossi, Cynthia Nixon, Sarah Paulson, Cherry Jones, Suze Orman, Heather Matarazzo, Leisha Hailey, and Michelle Paradise. At 22 and 31, respectively, Lohan and Ronson are among the youngest out lesbian celebrity couples in America.

In a editorial on AfterEllen.com last week called “Lindsay Lohan and the New Definition of ‘Out‘”, we profiled Lohan and Ronson as an example of a new wave of same-sex couples who are re-defining the notion of what being “out” means.

Lohan and Ronson have accompanied each other almost everywhere for over two years now, attend public events together, wear matching rings, kiss in public, and have had their relationship captured in countless photographs. They have even spoken out together against Gov. Sarah Palin’s anti-gay stance.

They have done everything but verbally confirm their relationship — until now.

Lohan and Ronson at TV Guide’s Sixth Annual Emmys After Party

But does acknowledging the relationship with words still matter in an era in which the grocery-shopping, event-attending, ring-wearing and hand-holding behavior of same-sex couples is now reported on almost as often as heterosexual couples?

While saying it out loud is arguably no longer a requirement to being out, words still have power — especially to the vast majority of straight Americans for whom the presumption of heterosexuality is so great they simply won’t believe a same-same relationship is true unless it is openly declared.

This is one of the reasons Ellen de Generes and Portia de Rossi’s “Wal-Mart wedding” makes such a difference — it makes the romantic nature of their relationship both appealing and unavoidable to mainstream America.

Lohan’s simple and low-key verbal confirmation of what most lesbian and bi women already knew may well do the same for a younger generation.

I stopped keeping up with media’s obsessive coverage of 22-year-old Lindsay Lohan a few years ago, just before she entered rehab for the first time.

It wasn’t just because I lost interest in Lohan. In the last few years, the press has become obsessed with reporting on, and arguably creating, depressing news stories about young women engaged in self-destructive or self-obsessed behavior.

Television shows, entertainment and gossip websites, newspapers and magazines were overflowing with reports on Britney Spears’s marriage troubles, ongoing custody problems, and career missteps; the latest feud between Paris Hilton and her Simple Life co-star Nicole Richie; or Lohan’s public battle with her father, her drinking problems, and her inability to show up to work on time.

Around that time on AfterEllen.com, I instituted what I only semi-jokingly referred to as the "no Britney, Paris, or Lindsay" rule, which was intended to keep our writers from covering these topics (and others like them) on the site. Not only because they’re boring, annoying, and repetitive, but because I don’t take pleasure from reading or writing about young women self-destructing.

So when the first rumors and photos began circulating about a relationship between Lohan and 31-year-old DJ Samantha Ronson a few years ago, I ignored them — because of the aforementioned rule, and because I was skeptical.

As the months wore on and the stories persisted, I realized there might be some truth to the rumors, after all, but thought Lohan was just doing the bi-for-show thing that I have seen so many female celebrities do over the years (see: t.A.T.u, Drew Barrymore, Madonna, Bai Ling, etc.).

I began to reconsider recently when it finally became clear to me that the two were most likely involved in a serious relationship, and that Lohan had begun to turn her life around. She is now working successfully again (guesting on Ugly Betty, starring in the indie film Labor Pains), and instead of stories about DUIs, rehab, and workplace reprimands, the tabloids and gossip blogs only have Lohan’s ongoing feud with her father and speculation about her relationship with Ronson to write about. (OK, and still the occasional punching of a paparazzo — Rome wasn’t built in a day).

Ugly Betty co-star star Eric Mabius told OK! magazine this week that the actress was "fun to work with" and that "it was nice to see her girlfriend Sam visiting the set and offering her that support."

Lohan with Ronson at the Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week
on Sept. 6, 2008

All of which is good news, but puts me and other entertainment journalists with ethics (yes, we do exist) in a bit of a quandary.