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 one 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, I don't see this keyboard problem with Enlightenment or xfce4,
only with gnome.