Strange keyboard/gnome problem with latest gnome updates

[walt <w41ter%gmail.com@localhost>]

I'm running the latest NetBSD-current and the latest gnome from pkgsrc
on x86.  I'm seeing a gnome/keyboard problem I can't explain:

I put the usual stuff in my .xinitrc like this:
exec dbus-launch --auto-syntax --exit-with-session gnome-session

Gnome seems to startup okay until I type any character on the keyboard
and then the entire gnome desktop freezes up.  None of the menus or
launchers respond in any way, so all I can do is ctl-alt-Backspace out
of the X session.

Here's the weird part.  I log in on one pseudo terminal and start
X manually by just typing 'X'. Then I log in separately on another
pseudo terminal and "export DISPLAY=:0" (I use bash).  I can now type 
'exec dbus-launch --auto-syntax --exit-with-session gnome-session'
and everything works perfectly, including the keyboard.

Has anyone seen anything like this before?  Any clues what's wrong?

BTW, this problem happens only with gnome.  Enlightenment and xfce4 
don't have this keyboard problem.