[FanWriter45]

Andrew,

Excellent thought! But when Kirk and Uhura kissed on national TV, Trek lost more than just a few viewers. If you refer way back to Starlog #3 (I think) they ran an article how that particular episode was yanked from southern television markets. (We've come a long way, baby!) Yes, the issue of being gay is comparable in my view.

It's just bizzare to me that we can have a trill marry a klingon, the inventor of the warp drive can have a torrid affair with a blob of cartoon light, but we don't dare show two guys hug and smooch on camera. "The Final Frontier" is right! I seem to recall David Gerrold having to butt heads with the producers on this issue a few times as well. David, who is out and proud, probably has some interesting viewpoints on this. Does anyone know if he's posted any essays on the subject anywhere?

[HRH The KING]

The last thread got bogged down with "liberals are ruining society" nonsense. Posts based on seeing the "conservative" (anti-gay) viewpoint in Star Trek. It's an odd suggestion for a number of reasons. 1- In a universe where no one seems to have a problem with inter-species mating, it seems highly unlikely that a same-sex relationship would be a considered taboo and 2- contemporary politicial definitons such as "liberal" and "conservative" may not even exist in the 24th century and even if they do, what each stands for may have changed vastly over 300 years.

So, to continue, we have to ask the question: do gay characters exist in the Trek universe, or has homosexuality been "cured" by then?

Homosexuality is not some kind of disorder that needs to be cured. If anyone believes that is IS, then the burden of proof is on them to prove their theories. So far, they've presented nothing.

DS9 had the perfect opportunity to cover this subject with the trills, but blew it.

I disagree. The very nature of the Trill means that they live their lives as males and females. The Trill may not even have a concept of gay/straight.

[GLM]

Why even go down this path? Why require anything from the writers except a good story? Give the writers the complete freedom they need to pick what they think will work. Many good stories, movies and TV series have been destroyed because external forces imposed some requirement on the story line. Most recently was the Bionic Woman when the deaf were upset that a deaf character was being played by a non-deaf actress. The relationship between the Bionic Woman and her deaf sister was a storyline that I really looked forward to and it was yanked! And in the end, there was no deaf character at all - just some lame storyline about two sisters who weren't getting along.

Does anyone remember Battlestar Galactica: 1980??? It was terrible. When you look into the history of the show, it was terrible because the producers forced the writers to include so much different "stuff" in order to try to please as much of the market as possible. In the end, they pleased no one.

If one special interest forces the writers to include a character that meets their requirement, then every other special interest is going to step in with their own demands. The next thing you know, you're going to have a 100 different characters representing every possible special interest and the story lines will never have time to get to know any one of them.

As I recall, in ST:TOS, the Japanese government wrote a letter complaining to Roddenberry that Sulu did not have as many girlfriends as Kirk. So the Japanese finally had a character and they still found something to complain about.

Also, simply including a homosexual character is not as simple as it sounds. Should the character be male or female? Should they be in the closet or out of the closet? Should they be comfortable with their orientation or undecided? Should they have one partner or a different partner in every episode? Should they have had a prior heterosexual relationship? If you answer any of these questions, some element of the homosexual community will be shut out and they will make demands on the writers.

Please, don't try to force anything on the writers. Let them create the characters they think will work with the storyline. I don't care if the character is gay, transgendered, Baptist, or Republican, Muslim, Eskimo or whatever. As long as it is the writer's choice and the character fits smoothly into the storyline that they've created.

[Livingston]

Nice points, King! The bit about interspecies mating and the conceptions of liberal and conservative by the time of Trek, completely agree. This society is totally different from ours. To try to define it looking through our social and political ideologies would be like someone of ancient Rome trying to explain how our society works through their social and political beliefs. The two are just so different they're not at all compatible.

The Trill thing, I mentioned something about that in an earlier post, saying it's the closest I'd seen Trek deal with homosexuality but you're right, to an alien race that exists both as female and male at different times throughout their lives, their conceptions of gender would be very different from ours, issues of homosexuality, bisexuality may not even be perceived the same as we would perceive them.

[Livingston]

Originally Posted by GLM

Why even go down this path? Why require anything from the writers except a good story? Give the writers the complete freedom they need to pick what they think will work. Many good stories, movies and TV series have been destroyed because external forces imposed some requirement on the story line. Most recently was the Bionic Woman when the deaf were upset that a deaf character was being played by a non-deaf actress. The relationship between the Bionic Woman and her deaf sister was a storyline that I really looked forward to and it was yanked! And in the end, there was no deaf character at all - just some lame storyline about two sisters who weren't getting along.

Does anyone remember Battlestar Galactica: 1980??? It was terrible. When you look into the history of the show, it was terrible because the producers forced the writers to include so much different "stuff" in order to try to please as much of the market as possible. In the end, they pleased no one.

If one special interest forces the writers to include a character that meets their requirement, then every other special interest is going to step in with their own demands. The next thing you know, you're going to have a 100 different characters representing every possible special interest and the story lines will never have time to get to know any one of them.

As I recall, in ST:TOS, the Japanese government wrote a letter complaining to Roddenberry that Sulu did not have as many girlfriends as Kirk. So the Japanese finally had a character and they still found something to complain about.

Also, simply including a homosexual character is not as simple as it sounds. Should the character be male or female? Should they be in the closet or out of the closet? Should they be comfortable with their orientation or undecided? Should they have one partner or a different partner in every episode? Should they have had a prior heterosexual relationship? If you answer any of these questions, some element of the homosexual community will be shut out and they will make demands on the writers.

Please, don't try to force anything on the writers. Let them create the characters they think will work with the storyline. I don't care if the character is gay, transgendered, Baptist, or Republican, Muslim, Eskimo or whatever. As long as it is the writer's choice and the character fits smoothly into the storyline that they've created.

Yeah, placing a gay character in a show only to meet some studio exec's wishes or to please some demographic would be a bad idea, but to just place one in the show. It is what it is, just show it. I wouldn't have a problem with that. I don't think you'd have these issues in Trek anyway, coming out of the closet and any sort of oppression or persecution, I don't think the society in the world of Trek would be like that, it's evident they are not like that to any other minority, everyone seems to 'just get along' on earth anyway. Just having a gay character there on the bridge, it is what it is. The others do not question or look at that character the way we do cause they live in a world where it doesn't matter.

I'd say when Star Trek first aired and people saw Uhura on the bridge, they thought it was great there was no prejudice that this bridge did represent a wide spectrum of humanity, but to Kirk and his crew, it's a non issue, cause they worked these issues out long ago, so what's the harm in showing a gay character, just showing them, just as they showed Uhura, we didn't need any explanation of how she got there. It was obvious, people got past the racial problems that plague our society. Why not show a homosexual, show they're past that as well?

Besides we're not forcing anything on the writers. From reading the other posts, mostly in the other thread, many spoke of how many of the writers and cast members have showed interest in addressing this issue in story lines.

[FanWriter45]

The thing is, Gene had to fight to keep the cast multi-racial in the beginning. It was the time of the civil rights marches and of Dr. King, and the network was scared spitless of losing ratings points because Gene wasn't casting his little Buck Rodgers show
"sensibly."

Since that time we've had women in command (Number 1 was originally rejected, and it took several decades to get to Janeway) and we've also had Commander Sisko in charge of DS9. The societal goalposts have moved. Now it's the time of us arguing and fighting for gay rights and equality. Star Trek, being a vision of where we could be needs to reflect that.

You either think IDIC is a central part of Trek, or you're just giving it lip service. Which is it?

[Livingston]

You talking to me? If so, I'll clarify. I think there is certainly room for homosexuality in star trek. Like I said before and in many other posts, it would be a non issue to the people who live in this world Star Trek portrays so why not have it on screen, why not have a character that is gay? Like you said, Star Trek shows a world where we should be that we should hope to create and so yes, a homosexual character should be there and yes I believe IDIC is an integral part of star trek, if not it's basis.

Fanwriter, I pay lip service to nothing.

[Oregon_Coast_Trekkie]

Well Fan, what would you think would be an acceptable way to present a gay character?

[HRH The KING]

I think too many people have the wrong idea about what a gay character would be like on Star Trek.

It's not like they are going to be:

1- Wearing leather with a moustache and a motorbike
2- Hilariously camp like the hilariously camp guy from "Will and Grace"
3- Some kind of fashion designer wearing a pink suit with a big collared shirt.


It will just be a guy or a woman, who is in a relationship, with a person of the same sex.

That's all.

All very mundane and routine, which IMO is the best way to present a gay relationship (IE: it would be as interesting or boring as a straight relationship).

[jerhanner]

Why not just have a character make a passing comment like,"Why not meet me and my partner for drinks in 10-Forward tonight?"
There's no need to treat a gay character any differently from a straight one; just change a few pronouns. And make their cabin more tastefully decorated.