Looking into this further, I believe no patch to cdbs is required. Simply including /usr/share/cdbs/1/class/gnome.mk sometime after including /usr/share/cdbs/1/rules/debhelper.mk appears to be sufficient to cause dh_desktop to be run at the correct time. At least for my package, this is sufficient to remove the lintian warning.
-- Jay Berkenbilt <q...@debian.org> -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-bugs-dist-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org