Parsing Homophobia
Let’s parse this, because it reflects opinions you can read from a wide variety of people posting on both the Hidden Frontier and Phase II discussion forums:
- Adding a homosexual cast member brings attention to a group that might not exist in Star Trek’s future.
This is really the most dangerous line of thinking. There are only so many ways in which a minority group might not exist in the future; they don’t merely stop existing. Someone has to erase them. And by erase I mean genocide. Is that really the future you want to wish on humanity? And it’s not so far away. Don’t think that once the cause(s) of homosexuality are discovered by science there won’t be a lot of well-meaning parents who will want to “protect” their children from either the sin of homosexuality or from the harm that might befall them at the hands of others’ prejudice and hatred. See, it’s not their prejudice that’s the problem, it’s your child’s homosexuality — blame the victim. - Why does there have to be a gay guy in everything?
There really isn’t. On broadcast TV the number of homosexual characters continues to decline, to just 1.1 percent of all series’ regular characters in the current television season, down from 1.3% in 2006, and 1.4% in 2005. - Inserting a stereotypical homosexual into a story that doesn’t call for one just furthers homosexual stereotyping.
How, precisely, does a story “call” for a homosexual? Or, rather, in what ways does a story seek to prevent a character from being homosexual? How is it that a character’s sexual orientation ruins a story? This sounds like another instance of blaming the homosexual rather than simply admitting some audience members’ discomfort or outright homophobia.
And what about the term stereotypical? Are all these gay characters people are objecting to really stereotypical? Sure, some are likely to be. But is the term stereotypical really just a code word for “actually kissing another guy”?
[...] Peter as one part of the male couple. Interestingly, two decades later, that portrayal proved controversial when “Blood and Fire, Part 1″ debuted a year [...]