To boldly go

I've never been much of a Star Trek fan (I was more into Star Wars . . . at least until those horrible prequels), but strangely enough two Star Trek related items are on my mind today.

First of all, as many of you probably already know, Zachary Quinto came out recently. He's most known for two roles: the villainous Sylar on Heroes and Spock in the Star Trek reboot. I actually first saw him on 24, where he played a CTU programmer (I think his name was Adam). His latest roles are in the movie Margin Call and the TV show American Horror Story, neither of which I have seen yet. I'm glad that he's decided to live openly. I know the decision to do so can have big career repercussions for actors. I guess it was the news of another gay kid committing suicide that convinced him it was the right thing to do.

The other thing is a fan-made Star Trek production called "Blood and Fire." It apparently is a continuation of the original series with new actors cast as Kirk, Spock, etc. Featured is Captain Kirk's nephew, Peter Kirk, who is gay and in a relationship with another member of the Enterprise crew. The only scene I've seen involves the two of them. It is a fairly long scene of the two of them in Peter's quarters, getting rather intimate (with most of their clothes on, though Peter manages to lose his shirt). I was reading a discussion board about the episode on the website of the creators, it was pretty interesting. There was a lot of Star Trek fans who were upset by that scene. Some just because of it's length and the effect on the pacing of the episode, but quite a few because of its very presence. Some complained that it represented catering to the "gay agenda" (oh how I despise that term). A couple of people complained about not being able to let their kids watch the episode (granted, apparently there's also some rather scary, violent scenes later on, but they were at least partially talking about the gay love scene). This of course began to degenerate into a discussion about the morality of homosexuality in general, which caused one of the creators to start threatening to ban people.

The internet is a breeding ground for such heated arguing and hateful rhetoric. I seem to have a compulsion to read the comments section on articles about controversial topics, especially gay rights. I almost always end up angry/sad at some of the ignorant, hateful things that some people say. Of course, there are usually more logical, compassionate people chiming in as well. However, even some usually logical people can have some pretty ridiculous beliefs and misunderstandings about homosexuality.

Case in point: I was talking to one of my best friends the other day, and the subject of gay rights came up when we were talking about the Republican candidates. He expressed his opinion that gay people shouldn't be able to get married, because gay people raising children would propagate homosexuality. I tried to explain to him that studies suggest that children of gay parents are no more likely than children of straight parents to be gay, but he was skeptical. Bah. Of course, I do realize that not everyone has put as much deep thinking into the subject as I have (for obvious reasons). Still, there's still so much misinformation out there that people are clinging to! If gay parents turn their kids gay, how come not all children of straight parents are straight?