In December 2002, in a short piece inappropriately titled "'Enterprise' to explore gay story lines", USA Today quoted Rick Berman justifying the continued absence of gay characters. Refering to the oft expressed fan argument that if gay main characters can't be introduced, then at least some identifiable gay background characters could be shown, such as a couple holding hands, Berman said
"That was really the wishful thinking of some people who were constantly at us. But we don't see heterosexual couples holding hands on the show, so it would be somewhat dishonest of us to see two gay men or lesbians holding hands."
Anyone who has seen STTNG, DS9 and Voyager, and that should include its executive producer, knows that all three shows have paired up their main characters both with each other and non-recurring characters, and shown these couples engage in every kind of romantic activity short of actual sex, including hand-holding.
Berman's statement, besides being a bald-faced lie, smacks of the Religious Right's favourite anti-gay talking point, that gay people are supposedly asking for special treatment, as opposed to equal treatment. It if wasn't for the mass media's ignorance, laziness and short attention span, Berman couldn't have gotten away with such an almost Orwellian distortion of the facts. But not only did he get away with it, he was further allowed to lecture the readers on the subject of education and "enlightenment".
At the August 2002 Creation Entertainment "Real Deal" convention in Las Vegas Brannon Braga was asked once again whether there would ever be gay characters on Star Trek. Braga at first tried to make the question go away with a joke:
"Have you ever heard of a character called Commander Riker?"
Pressed on the issue, he said
"It's a good question. To introduce a character and to call attention to it? There has to be a reason [for that character] to be [in the series]...without seeming obvious or to be catering to people. I get that question a lot, and it's nothing we take lightly," he said. "You never know. We'll see."
In an online chat on April 9, 2003 published on Brannonbraga.com, Braga responded to the same question,
Braga: This is a question we’ve been asked many times over the years. The answer is simple: if we can find a way to do it subtly, for a good story reason, then yes. But the trouble is, Star Trek humans are tolerant of all cultures, so how do you portray a gay person without it seeming obvious? We have certainly dealt with gay rights many times on the show, however. Most recently in Stigma.
Indeed, the question has been asked many times over the years. And still, the official answer is the same ill-considered, offensive response Trek officials used to give until Roddenberry's 1991 epiphany, and have been giving again ever since. A response that takes the inequality, and indeed, the inferiority of gay people for granted. Braga's answer shows that he's part of the problem, not the solution. In the distant future that Star Trek depicts, all sexual orientations are considered equivalent by society, and fully accepted, so gay characters do not need a story justification to exist, and they do not need to be discreet about who they are (which is of course what Braga means by "subtle").
But Braga doesn't get it. He continues to perceive gay people as an "issue", a problem, not simply as people who are a natural part of the diversity of the human family. If one asked Braga for the "story reason" behind making one character black, and other characters white, he could give none. If one asked Braga for the "story reason" to make the security chief British and the communications officer Asian, he could give none. If one asked Braga for the story reason why certain characters are male, and others are female, he could give none. He would probably shrug his shoulders and say something to the effect that in any mix of people, some will be male, some will be female, some black, some white, some Asian, some American, some European, and so on, and that anything else would be offensive and hypocritcal. One cannot preach against racism and have an all-white cast. One cannot claim to support gender equality, and have an all-male crew. Why is this simple idea so hard to grasp when it comes to sexual orientation?
By asking rhetorically how to portray a gay character without being obvious, Braga compounds the offense. He doesn't seem to have a problem with "obvious" when it comes to the sex lives and desires of the heterosexual main cast members. It doesn't seem to be a problem for him to have whole plot lines devoted to the Captain dating a beautiful woman, or the Security Officer drooling after the "hot" Vulcan science officer, or the hot Vulcan chick giving naked massages to the chief engineer. He doesn't seem to mind blatant sexual pandering as long as it is heterosexual in nature. "Catering" is quite alright, as long as teenage heterosexual boys are being catered to. The very fact that Braga thinks that a gay character can't be "obvious" in the exact same fashion betrays the unquestioned homophobic assumptions that underlie his thinking.
Braga's excuse that Star Trek has dealt with gay rights "many times" is disingenuous, given that all these alleged "gay rights" episodes were allegorical and thus came with "plausible deniability" attached. Even if we accept the argument that the franchise is in principle commited to full equality for non-heterosexuals, its continuing failure to live up to this purported standard represents an exercise in hypocrisy of the highest order. This hypocrisy culminated in the "innocent victims of AIDS" episode "Stigma", which even Rick Berman does not consider an argument for gay civil rights. In an April 2003 interview with Trekweb, Berman stated,
"Stigma' was supposed to be our gay episode, but we sort of copped out."
Indeed - with respect to gay characters, copping out has become the official policy of the Trek franchise.