The Sin of Partiality

My brothers, show no partiality as you hold the faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory. For if a man wearing a gold ring and fine clothing comes into your assembly, and a poor man in shabby clothing also comes in, and if you pay attention to the one who wears the fine clothing and say, "You sit here in a good place," while you say to the poor man, "You stand over there," or, "Sit down at my feet," have you not then made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?  Listen, my beloved brothers, has not God chosen those who are poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom, which he has promised to those who love him?  But you have dishonored the poor man. Are not the rich the ones who oppress you, and the ones who drag you into court?  Are they not the ones who blaspheme the honorable name by which you were called?

If you really fulfill the royal law according to the Scripture, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself," you are doing well.  But if you show partiality, you are committing sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors.  For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become accountable for all of it.  For he who said, "Do not commit adultery," also said, "Do not murder." If you do not commit adultery but do murder, you have become a transgressor of the law.  So speak and so act as those who are to be judged under the law of liberty.  For judgment is without mercy to one who has shown no mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment.

James 2:1-13

As GLBT Christians, James gives a very poignant message.  We are often rejected by churches, yet James discusses the seriousness of the sin of partiality.  He says that the members of the church should not look down on someone or treat someone as having less value.  This is the first sin in James in a list of sins that the first chapter tells us to "put away" (James 1:21) and ways in which we must be "doers and not just hearers," (James 1:22) which we discussed last week.  For some reason partiality was a sin that was a higher priority for James to address than the dangerous tongue which he discusses in depth in the next chapter.

James takes partiality much more seriously than probably most Christians today take it.  If most of us were making a list of sins, partiality probably would not make it on the list, but as GLBT Christians, it should. In James 2:4, he says the person who does it "judges with evil thoughts" and in verse 6 he describes the partial person as "dishonoring the poor man."

In our view of sin that includes "white lies" and "the seven deadly sins," one would think showing partiality would barely make it to the status of a white lie.  However, in verses 8-11 James equates partiality with adultery or murder.

Why does James emphasize the seriousness of partiality?  At a fundamental level, partiality denies the power of Jesus on the cross.  The sacrifice Christ made in the crucifixion is the great leveler of humanity.  Without it we are all sinners, regardless of what we have done.  Only because of it are any of us redeemed.  Partiality is a way for humans to make themselves elevate themselves or others.  It does it by allowing us to create tiers of people who are holier than others, and tiers of people who are worse sinners than others.  When I claim to be more holy or righteous because of externalities than another believer, I am denying that it is only Jesus on the cross that accomplishes this.  When I claim someone is a worse sinner for whatever reasons, I deny that God has saved me from the exact same place through the death of His son.  When we see each other for who we are in light of Christ's sacrifices, partiality becomes quite petty.

C.S. Lewis in The Weight of Glory made a powerful and poignant quote about who we are in light of eternity.

"It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal…  It is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit—immortal horrors or everlasting splendors.

If we truly see each other in this light, how can we show partiality to each other?

Closely related to this is that very simply, we have no justification for partiality.  We had nothing in us that warranted our salvation, yet Christ saved us.  Whatever we can think to hold against someone, God can hold much more against us.  He chooses continually not to.

The Bible shows us two types of partiality we should watch out for:  partiality based on appearance or titles and partiality based on sin.  Partiality based on appearance or titles is the partiality specifically addressed in this passage. In a social setting, a school setting, or any other setting we should not show partiality based on the many socioeconomic reasons we contrive to divide ourselves.  Race, fashionable clothes, income, education, etc.  Just because you may be more inclined to be friends with people you are more similar to, there is no justification or reason to look down on someone for these kind of external reasons.

Tragically this occurs far too often in many churches.  How often have you seen someone get weird looks because they did not dress well enough for that churches standards, or when was the last time you saw someone being kept at a distance or avoided because they did not meet that churches standard of modesty?  We may not show partiality by bringing the person with the good clothes to the front of the room, but how often do our churches exclude whether directly or indirectly because someone isn't dressed well enough?  With my particular church we don't judge people by appearance, but I have seen it many times in other churches.

The other partiality mentioned in the Bible is partiality based on sin or perceived sin, which is the most important lesson for us.  Jesus regularly interacted with tax collectors and sinners.  Tax collectors were the worst form of the greedy bureaucrat.  They were known as thieves and extortionists, and they were viewed as traitors who were agents of Rome's effort to subjugate the Jews.  The word "sinners" is largely a euphemism for prostitute.  It could also refer to people who lived such generally evil lives that they were known by all to be living lives of sin.

Matthew 9:10-13 describes the conversion of Matthew/Levi and his subsequent eating and drinking with Matthew's friends who are described as "tax collectors and sinners."  This story is told in both Luke and Mark as well.  In Matthew 11:19 it appears that Jesus was known by the people at large as "a friend of tax collectors and sinners."  In Luke 15:1 Jesus tells the parables of the Lost Sheep, Lost Coin, and Prodigal Son after "the tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to hear him."

These were the people who were attracted to Jesus and who he came to preach to.  Much like the pharisees did, it is far too easy for us to look down on and disassociate ourselves from someone because they are a "worse sinner" than we are.  Jesus would have none of that.  If a pastor spent his time with and ministering to cheats and sexually immoral people, would we be able to view him as following the pattern of Christ, or would we criticize him for "putting himself in the way of temptation" or for "not having enough hedges in place to guard against temptation?"  Should churches accept GLBT Christians, or do we know they will be looked down on and judged instead of loved?  Jesus rebuked those who looked down on others as being worse sinners than ourselves.  I believe that many modern Christians need to be similarly rebuked for looking down on GLBT Christians and rejecting them.

Everyone who is in the church is a brother—everyone stands on an equal footing before  Jesus Christ.   Wealth, status, social standing, position, appearance—none of these matter except all men should come to Jesus Christ and worship Him.  Everyone who has faith in Jesus Christ bows before Him as Lord.  The charge is clear: believers, those who truly believe in Jesus Christ, are not to show partiality or favoritism. It is strictly forbidden.  Leviticus 19:15 says, "You shall do no injustice in court. You shall not be partial to the poor or defer to the great, but in righteousness shall you judge your neighbor." Job 13:10 says "He will surely rebuke you if in secret you show partiality. "

Moment of Zen: Barefoot

If you are from the rural South, you know that summer as a kid meant going barefoot.  We often wear flip flops now, but it's still fun to go barefoot and dangle your feet in the creek, lake, or river.  How many of you have fond barefoot memories?

Trek Slash Fiction

For some “Trek” fans, even seeing a gay character in the series wouldn’t be enough. In a sense the show never gave some fans what they wanted, and in return, they’ve done it themselves: They’ve imagined Kirk and Spock as gay lovers.

The idea has been explored thoroughly in the mode of sexually explicit self-published fan works called “slash” fiction. In slash fiction, devotees use established characters from their favorite books, movies or television shows — “The X-Files,” “Harry Potter,” “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” — and write their own plots. The genre allows its writers to become part of a world that they could previously only experience through a television screen, says Henry Jenkins, an MIT media studies expert who has written widely about slash.

“I often reference that moment in ‘Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan’ where Spock is dying and Kirk stands there, a wall of glass separating the two longtime buddies,” explains Jenkins “Both of them are reaching out toward each other, their hands pressed hard against the glass, trying to establish physical contact. They both have so much they want to say and so little time to say it. Spock calls Kirk his friend, the fullest expression of their feelings anywhere in the series. Almost everyone who watches that scene feels the passion the two men share, the hunger for something more than what they are allowed. And, I tell my nonfan listeners, slash is what happens when you take away the glass.”

On the Web, “Star Trek” slash stories are archived according to their protagonists. Among the most popular categories are “P/Q” (Picard paired up with the Continuum’s Q), “J/7″ (Voyager’s Captain Kathryn Janeway with Borg beauty Seven of Nine) and, of course, “K/S” (Kirk-Spock).  For reasons that are the subject of much speculation, almost all of it — including the male-male stuff — is written by women. Much of it is full of soul-searching dialogue, torpid stares and inner ruminations: “Spock averted his eyes. He felt a powerful desire to make Kirk stop, ask him the dangerous questions which hovered unsaid on his tongue.” Even once the action begins, the foreplay is endless.

In P/Q slash, Picard is often depicted as a hypersensitive lover patiently teaching a frustrated Q how to enjoy sex. A typical K/S plot leaves Kirk and Spock stranded on a planet — one of the pair is injured and the other must care for him. In some of the female-female slash, there is no sex at all. The money shot in “Only Over You,” for instance, a Web-posted J/7 story by a woman identified as Magiluna Stormwriter, consists of Seven lying in Janeway’s arms while the captain sings her a lullaby: “People say they know me, but they don’t see. My heart’s your future, your future is me. Angel, please don’t go … I’m out of my mind and it’s only over you.” As far as I can tell, they don’t even bother to take their clothes off — it’s just two women sitting around Utopia, being gay.

In some cases, authors of slash take pains to make clear their same-sex protagonists are heterosexual at heart. But many fans go a step further and say that Spock and Kirk, Q and Picard, and Janeway and Seven are truly gay — or at least have gay tendencies. In the early and mid-’90s, when “Trek” slash was at its height, this led to accusations of homo- and heterophobia on “Trek”-related listservs and message boards. In the “slash wars,” as some call them, arguments turned on obscure plot details and alleged double-entendres.

But the majority of gay Trekkers I spoke with don’t particularly care whether Q is gay, much less whether Spock and Kirk have ever done it. Most just like reading stories that show gayness as part of Roddenberry’s universe. They’d be more than happy with Whoopi Goldberg’s idea of a background shot of two nondescript men holding hands in a bar.

Brynen points to the mid-’90s Warner Bros. television series “Babylon 5″ as an example of how the issue could have been covered. “It was just a throwaway line or two in a single episode,” he told me. “Two male characters have to go undercover to Mars to contact the local resistance. And their cover is that they’re a honeymooning couple. When they’re told this, they make faces at each other and the scene is good for a few laughs. It’s not a big part of the plot. But it’s important. They’re not gay, but the clear implication is that it’s perfectly normal for there to be male-male honeymooning couples. It speaks volumes, even though it was just a few seconds of one show.”

Trek Tolerance

So what if Star Trek has not had a gay character? Who cares? To the average non-Trekker, all of this attention to what kisses who in which universe seems absurd — the comic obsessions of "Star Trek" fans encouraged and compounded by the gloomy obsessions of identity politics. There are now about two dozen shows on television that feature gay characters. Would it matter much if we added one more?

The answer, many gay Trekkers agree, is yes. To those reading the mass media's political tea leaves, "Star Trek" is unique not because it's set in space or in the future, or because it's the most successful franchise in the history of television, but because it represents a Utopia.

True, there is violence and strife, but always thanks to outsiders: the Klingons, the Romulans, the Cardassians, the Borg, the giant lizard-man Kirk fights in "Arena." Within the quadrants controlled by Starfleet, all is blissful tolerance and everyone gets to wear the same tight uniforms.

So it's one thing to exclude a group of people from a world as imperfect as our own, but what does it say when you've been kicked out of Utopia?

"They don't need money in 'Star Trek' and they don't need religion," says Cecilia Tan, founder and editor of Circlet Press, a Cambridge, Mass., publisher of gay-themed science fiction. "There are no Christians in 'Star Trek.' Everyone's a sort of secular humanist. Everyone is accepted and happily employed. So everyone wants to see themselves in that world. It's like, if everyone's all happy and well-adjusted, where are the happy, well-adjusted gay people?"

It was precisely because the original "Star Trek" series was shot through with Utopian themes that it seemed natural for it to boldly go where no television show had gone before. In an era when such casting decisions were risqué, Roddenberry put an African-American actress (Nichelle Nichols, playing Lieutenant Uhura) and an Asian-American actor (George Takei, playing Lieutenant Sulu) on the Enterprise's bridge. Not to mention a Russian helmsman during the height of the Cold War.

The stupidity of prejudice was a recurring theme on the show. In a famous third-season episode, "Plato's Stepchildren," Kirk and Uhura engage in the first white-black kiss American television viewers had ever seen. This was 1968, just one year after the Supreme Court struck down 16 states' laws prohibiting interracial marriage.

How important was a competent, black woman on television at the time? "You cannot [leave]," Nichols claims Martin Luther King Jr. told her when she considered leaving the show after its first season. "Don't you realize how important your presence, your character is? Don't you realize this gift [Roddenberry] has given the world? Men and women of all races going forth in peaceful exploration, living as equals … This is not a black role, and this is not a female role. You have the first nonstereotypical role on television, male or female. You have broken ground."

King persuaded Nichols. She stayed with the show and became an important part of its iconography. Uhura developed so much brand-name recognition that, in 1977, NASA asked her to help recruit female and minority astronauts.

Yet some point out that King was exaggerating when he said Nichols had a nonstereotypical role. "The three recurrent female characters in [the original 'Star Trek'] all performed tasks that were accepted 'women's work' in the mid-1960s," notes Rex Brynen, a political science professor who teaches at McGill University, in his 2000 essay "Mirror, Mirror? The Politics of Television Science Fiction." Uhura "was essentially a futuristic telephone operator … Christine Chapel and Janice Rand were a space-traveling nurse and secretary, respectively. All were young, attractive and dressed in very short skirts, as were most of the other women to appear in the show … Even the show's slogan — 'to boldly go where no man has gone before' — signaled its reflection of, rather than challenge to, established gender stereotypes."

"There are an endless number of episodes that deal with the issue of ethnic and cultural tolerance," Brynen added. "Though the show's producers aggressively cultivated 'Star Trek's' image as a trailblazer, they were far more progressive on race than they were on gender and sexual orientation."

There may not have been any gay characters yet, but two Star Trek actors have come out as openly gay:  George Takei and Zachary Quinto.  Hopefully, in the new J.J. Abram Star Trek movies, we will finally see a gay character emerge.  With Enterprise doing so poor in the ratings, there is doubtful that a new Star Trek series will be developed, so it is up to the newly rebooted movies to bring us a gay character.

Sexuality in the Stars

Several instances of the Star Trek franchise coming very close to featuring GLBT issues can be seen in "Next Generation" and "Deep Space Nine."  It had been rumored that "Enterprise" was to have a gay crewman, most likely Lt. Reid, but it never materialized as part of the show.

In the "Next Generation" episode, "The Offspring," the android character Data decides to build an android daughter, whom he calls Lal. Data educates her as best he can, but Lal becomes confused when she sees two people kissing. In a typically "Star Trek-ky" "What is this 'love' you speak of?" scene that takes place in the Enterprise D's lounge, Whoopi Goldberg, playing Guinan, teaches Lal about the birds and the bees.

"According to the script, Guinan was supposed to start telling Lal, 'When a man and a woman are in love …' and in the background, there would be men and women sitting at tables, holding hands," says Richard Arnold, Roddenberry's research consultant on "The Next Generation" and a columnist for the official "Star Trek" newsletter. "But Whoopi refused to say that. She said, 'This show is beyond that. It should be "When two people are in love."' And so it was decided on set that one of the tables in the background should have two men holding hands — or two women, or whatever. But someone ran to a phone and made a call to the production office and that was nixed. [Producer] David Livingston came down and made sure that didn't happen."

That was back in 1990. The next year, Roddenberry responded to a Gaylaxian-led letter-writing campaign by promising to bring gays into the "Star Trek" universe. "In the fifth season of 'Star Trek: The Next Generation,' viewers will see more of shipboard life in some episodes, which will, among other things, include gay crew members in day-to-day circumstances," Roddenberry wrote in a statement to the Advocate.

A few months later Roddenberry suffered a fatal pulmonary embolism and heart attack. And many gay Trekkers took his statement to the Advocate as a promise that Rick Berman, Roddenberry's successor, was dutybound to honor. Berman, however, didn't see things that way.

Before he joined the "Next Generation" team in 1987, Berman had spent five years producing a children's show called "The Big Blue Marble." At Paramount, he oversaw production of shows like "Family Ties," "Webster" and "Cheers." Unlike the creator of "Star Trek," Berman had little abstract fascination with the destiny of human civilization. No one I spoke with accuses him of homophobia. But he certainly wasn't interested in putting "ensign tutti-frutti" on a show that, in some markets, was broadcast in the after-school time slot.

The last three seasons of "The Next Generation" came and went without gayness. Ditto for seven years of "Deep Space Nine" and "Voyager," both of which Berman helped create and produce. The fifth "Star Trek" franchise, "Enterprise," aired without a gay character. Berman was head honcho for that project, too.

"Gene talked to me about the issue of how gay people could be depicted," says Ernie Over, a Wyoming journalist who worked as Roddenberry's personal assistant.. "And the consensus between us was that we should show people in background situations — two people walking down a hallway holding hands, for example. You would do it without dialogue, without making a big deal about it. In the 23rd century, that would be accepted as normal.

Over the years, some gender-bending has been permitted — but always with a sci-fi twist that makes it something more confusing than garden-variety homosexuality. For example, in "Rejoined," a 1995 "Deep Space Nine" episode, female science officer Jadzia Dax and a female guest character named Lenara Kahn exchanged a steamy smooch. Without the sound or context, it could have been confused for a lesbian kiss.

But in space, just because something looks gay doesn't mean it is. It turned out that Dax and Kahn were, to use a "Star Trek" term, "joined trills" — compound entities whose biological form (the human-looking "trill" part) is inhabited by an ethereal creature called a "symbiote," which jumps from trill to trill as the hosts die. Although Kahn and Dax were strangers trill-wise, their symbiotes shared a straight relationship back when the Kahn symbiote had a male host.  The show featured a Trill taboo, not because both characters were women, but because they had known each other previously with different hosts.  When a symbiote moves to a new host, they must leave their old romantic relationships.  However, this was basically forgotten when Ezri became the new host when Jadzia died.  Ezri does attempt to rekindle the relationship with Worf, but ultimately, it does not work out.  

However, "Rejoined" did show the fluidity of sexuality in the Star Trek universe, but not all fans saw it that way.  "That kiss was not a 'lesbian' kiss because both women were actually heterosexuals," complains Rochus Boerner, a 27-year-old Arizona State University graduate student who maintains a Web site devoted to uncovering what he calls Paramount's "saga of deceit, lies and broken promises." "Their desire for each other was induced by their symbiotes, who were remembering a past heterosexual relationship … [W]hen the episode ended, Jadzia was 'back to normal' again."

Gay Trekkers undoubtedly uttered an even greater sigh of disappointment following the airing of a 1992 "Next Generation" episode, "The Outcast." In the story, Commander Riker becomes romantically involved with Soren, a member of an androgynous race called the J'naii, whose leaders ruthlessly suppress any manifestation of sexual identity. "I am taking a terrible risk," Soren tells Riker. "Some [J'naii] have strong inclinations for maleness. Some have urges to be female. I am one of the latter … In our world, these feelings are forbidden. [We] lead secret and guarded lives. We seek each other out, always hiding, always terrified of being discovered."

When Soren is outed, she is put on trial by the J'naii council. "What we do is not different from what you do," she pleads. "What makes you think you can dictate how people love each other?"

Her arguments fail, and she is brainwashed into androgyny. According to one "Next Generation" supervising producer, "The Outcast" was supposed to have been "the gay episode." But many gay viewers wondered why Berman felt the need to slink around in allegory.

Jonathan Frakes, who played Riker, complained later that the episode wasn't "gutsy" enough and that "Soren should have been more evidently male." On e-mail chat groups, some gay Trekkers saw the episode as worse than timid. "The depiction of Soren's society seemed to be something taken right from Rush Limbaugh's show or Pat Buchanan's campaign literature," complained an anonymous message poster. "If you listen to those people, you'll hear them talking about how the feminist and homosexual political agendas want to destroy the traditional family and make society into a sexless, genderless collection of politically correct clones … Soren's society was a depiction of those people's worse nightmares."

A 1999 "Deep Space Nine" episode that touched on lesbian motifs, "The Emperor's New Cloak," provoked similar reactions. Viewers saw Lieutenant Ezri Dax, the station counselor, exchange a kiss with one woman and express interest in another. Unfortunately, it was not the genuine Ezri Dax they were watching but, rather, her menacing counterpart from an alternate, more evil universe. The "real" Ezri remained solidly heterosexual in her normal, heterosexual world.  Another example is in the Deep Space Nine episode "Crossover." Kira Nyres, Deep Space Nine's executive officer, encounters her mirror self, who is Intendant of Terok Nor, the Mirror universe's Deep Space Nine. The mirror Kira falls in love with her double from the other universe. At the time, Nana Visitor, who played Kira, dismissed the idea of her character being bisexual, saying that she intended to portray this as "total narcissism on her part. It had nothing to do with sexuality". However, later episodes continued to show her surrounded by a mixed-gender harem, and eventually depicted her being in a romantic relationship with her universe's version of Ezri Tigan the unjoined Ezri Dax.

Do any of these close calls to having GLBT characters matter?  That is what we will discuss tomorrow.

Blood and Fire

Over the past four-and-a-half decades, California science fiction writer David Gerrold has produced 42 novels, 11 of them nominated for major industry awards. But among Trekkers — they hate being called "Trekkies" — he is famous for another reason. In 1967, at age 19, Gerrold sold Paramount Pictures a lighthearted "Star Trek" script in which the Enterprise became a breeding farm for tiny, fecund balls of fur. "The Trouble With Tribbles," as the episode was titled, consistently polls as the most popular episode in "Star Trek" history.

In fall 1986, when Paramount announced it was creating a new "Trek" series, "The Next Generation," the now middle-aged Gerrold was brought on-board to help create it. Before Gerrold had done much more than move into his Los Angeles office, he traveled to Boston for the 20th anniversary convention of the original show. Following a speech to a large crowd of Trekkers, Gene Roddenberry, the creator of "Star Trek," took a question about "The Next Generation" from a fan named Franklin Hummel, a Boston Public Library employee and director of a gay science fiction group called the Gaylaxians. Gerrold was in the crowd, taking notes.

"Franklin asked whether there would be a gay character on the new show. He made the point that [the original] 'Star Trek' had been a leader in bringing black and Asian characters to television, that this was the next step," Gerrold told me in May. "Gene agreed. He said, 'Sooner or later, we'll have to address the issue. We should probably have a gay character.'"

Back in Los Angeles, Gerrold says, Roddenberry mentioned "the gay issue" in a meeting about the direction of the new series. Apparently some members of the staff were surprised. "Next Generation" producer "Robert Justman made a remark about 'ensign tutti-frutti,'" says Gerrold. "But Gene very calmly explained that it was time."

A few months later, in late 1986, Gerrold began work on "Blood and Fire," his first — and, as things turned out, only — "Next Generation" script. In the story, Captain Jean-Luc Picard and his Enterprise D answer a call from a distressed medical research vessel. When the mission team beams over, it finds that the ship's crew is infected with "Regulan blood worms," an apparently incurable pathogen so deadly that Starfleet Command has ordered its officers to destroy any ship they contaminate.

Aside from its obvious reference to AIDS, the script also contained a casual nod to homosexuality. "How long have you been together?" Commander Will Riker asks a pair of male officers who accompany him to the blood-worm-stricken ship.

"Since the academy," one replies.

"This was during one of the worst parts of the AIDS crisis," Gerrold says. "Before protease inhibitors, before AZT. AIDS was not a treatable condition; it was a fatal disease. And the fear of it was widespread, so much so that blood donorship had reached critically low levels.

"On a more personal note, Michael Minor [art director for 'Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan'] and Merritt Butrick [who played Kirk's son in the 'Star Trek' movies] were also infected."

In Gerrold's script, curing the disease required a complete blood transfusion. To treat the infected, the worried Enterprise D crew was asked to donate blood. "I felt this plot point would raise the consciousness of 20 million 'Star Trek' fans overnight," says Gerrold. "In fact, I was hoping that we could put a card at the end of the episode encouraging people to donate blood."

Gerrold never got a chance to lobby for that card. After a series of arguments with Roddenberry's underlings, Gerrold quit the show, and the episode was permanently shelved. Gerrold says, half-joking, that the script got caught up in "orifice politics."

The breakup was bitter. Roddenberry, who had sent Gerrold a telegram congratulating him on "Blood and Fire" ("Everybody loves your script"), now began badmouthing his work at "Star Trek" conventions.

"A large part of the problem was that Gene's health was failing," Gerrold says. "He didn't have the physical strength he needed — and he was experiencing mental lapses as well."

Gerrold says that some of Roddenberry's collaborators stepped in and began to make decisions about the show. Other writers, including Herb Wright, were fired. Roddenberry's lawyer, Leonard Maizlish, even went so far as to write story memos and rewrite scripts. And Maizlish was hardly sensitive to the gay issue. "The last time I saw [Maizlish] I was helping Herb Wright pack up his office," says Gerrold. "The lawyer came to make sure we weren't stealing anything. To my face, he called me 'an AIDS-infected cocksucker. A fucking faggot.'"

Some details of Gerrold's story are disputed (though not the bit about Maizlish, who is now dead; David Alexander, Roddenberry's authorized biographer, referred to the lawyer in his discussions with me as "Roddenberry's dark presence").

Many "Star Trek" insiders say Gerrold's "Blood and Fire" was simply a bad script. "David has made a career out of this sort of claim," says Ernie Over, a Wyoming journalist who worked as Roddenberry's personal assistant. "He had an agenda, which was to get gay people onto 'Star Trek.'"

"I knew Gerrold from 1972, and I'd read all his books up to that point. 'Blood and Fire' was not his best work," says Richard Arnold, Roddenberry's research consultant on "The Next Generation" and a columnist for the official "Star Trek" newsletter. "I was almost offended by the stereotypes. The scene I remember particularly was when the gay couple was having a sort of lover's dispute. The one we could call the wife was expressing concern to the other about getting into dangerous situations. He was saying stuff like 'You know how much I worry about you when you're away.' I mean, come on. This was absolutely ridiculous — for Starfleet officers or for gay men."

But whatever the merits of the "Blood and Fire" script, Arnold, Over and other "Star Trek" insiders agree that Roddenberry's subordinates have deliberately kept the official "Star Trek" canon free of any explicit mention of homosexuality since the creator made his comments to the Gaylaxians 15 years ago.

Decades after David Gerrold wrote a Star Trek script dealing with homosexuality that was shelved by the producers, a revamped version of the episode was filmed by the fan series Star Trek: New Voyages.

"I knew about the script and the story, and I approached David with an idea of using it in our series," said New Voyages executive producer James Cawley. "A few of the original elements were kept intact but changed to make it relevant to 2001 as opposed to 1987." The gay characters in the revised script will be Captain Kirk's nephew Peter, seen as a child in "Operation: Annihilate", and his lover, Lieutenant Alex Freeman.

"Producers did not want to address homosexuality in Star Trek even though the original series talked about race and war and drugs and hippie culture," noted Cawley. "We have dared to [do] something that the franchise holders would never do. We are including an openly gay couple in the Enterprise, showing the world that...the prejudice and the bias will be gone [in the future]."

The actor playing Peter, Bobby Rice, has already been involved in another fan production, Star Trek: Hidden Frontier, which is set in the Next Generation era and has also included gay characters. Cawley saw his performance and sought him out to appear in New Frontier. "It's pretty wild. I never thought I'd be a Kirk," said Rice. "I feel like what we are doing is fantastic and groundbreaking ... homosexuality should be generally accepted in the future. Star Trek has always been about tackling these kinds of issues."

Gerrold said that he was delighted with the longer screen time than a 44-minute television episode and the fact that he can portray events he could not have scripted in 1987. "At one point they are talking about getting married, and at one point they actually kiss on-screen. But we are not going any place that's thematically out of place in Star Trek," he said. "I'm enormously proud of how far we have come in such a short time and that I get to live long enough to see this episode be shot."

"To Boldly Go..."

The Starship Enterprise, arguably the most famous vessel in the history of fiction, has seen some amazing sights. Its crew has gone back in time, averted intergalactic war and defeated monsters that eat whole planets. In the two newest movies, J.J. Abrams has given Star Trek a reboot with an exciting new take on the 47 year old franchise.  I'm a big Star Trek fan, and as such, I went to see the newest movie, Star Trek Into Darkness, last weekend.  I loved it.  When I saw the first Star Trek by J.J. Abrams, some people in the theater were not thrilled with the reboot.  Into Darkness, however, bring back some of the story-lines Star Trek Fans are familiar with.  This was a movie for new Trek fans and old.  The movie is filled with references to the original Star Trek, and at the same time, allows new fans to experience Star Trek in whole new light. 

Star Trek took on many issues of its day.  Most Star Trek stories depict the adventures of humans and aliens who serve in Starfleet, the space-borne humanitarian and peacekeeping armada of the United Federation of Planets. The protagonists have altruistic values, and must apply these ideals to difficult dilemmas. Many of the conflicts and political dimensions of Star Trek represent allegories of contemporary cultural realities. Star Trek: The Original Series addressed issues of the 1960s, just as later spin-offs have reflected issues of their respective decades. Issues depicted in the various series include war and peace, the value of personal loyalty, authoritarianism, imperialism, class warfare, economics, racism, religion, human rights, sexism, feminism, and the role of technology. Roddenberry stated: "[By creating] a new world with new rules, I could make statements about sex, religion, Vietnam, politics, and intercontinental missiles. Indeed, we did make them on Star Trek: we were sending messages and fortunately they all got by the network."

Yet there's one frontier that has consistently eluded producers: Through three seasons on television and six movies, the decks of the original Enterprise have never witnessed a single word or gesture of gay affection. The same goes for the Enterprise D from "Star Trek: The Next Generation" and the eponymous craft from "Deep Space Nine" and "Voyager." No same-sex kisses. No hand-holding. Not even a casual reference to the existence of homosexuality.

It is an odd distinction for the franchise that, 45 years ago, gave America its first televised interracial kiss.  In the 1968 episode "Plato's Stepchildren", Uhura (Nichelle Nichols) and Captain Kirk (William Shatner) kiss. The episode is popularly cited as the first example of a scripted inter-racial kiss on United States television. Originally, the scene was meant to be filmed with and without the kiss, so that the network could later decide whether to air the kiss. However, Shatner and Nichols deliberately flubbed every take of the shot without the kiss so that they could not be used.  With many groundbreaking topics and depictions "You would think that occasionally a gay or lesbian character would [appear] somewhere in the 24th century," wrote a contributor to the Lavender Dragon fan newsletter a few years back. "Has the Federation [of Planets] found a 'cure' for homosexuality?"

Star Trek's creators have beaten around the bush on the issue, but never fully embraced a homosexual character in the Star Trek franchise.  This is what I want to look at this week in my posts, so,stay tuned for more.

P.S. There will not be a poem for this Tuesday, but I will be back to my regularly scheduled program next week.

Hearing and Doing the Word

Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger; for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God.  Therefore put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.
But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.  For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror.  For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like.  But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing.
If anyone thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his heart, this person's religion is worthless.  Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.

James 1:19-27

Continuing our look at James, the above passage is one of the most poignant.  When you come before God’s Word, how do you prepare your heart for reading and doing? James instructs us to receive the Word with quietness, calmness, a pure heart, and with humility. When you read the the Bible at home, when you hear it on Sunday morning, or when a brother or sister in Christ brings the Bible to you in teaching, correction, exhortation, or rebuke, receive the Word with meekness. Pray for a teachable spirit that is willing to discipline itself towards godliness.

Be doers of the Word! James has a strong call (really the thesis statement of the book of James) in the close of chapter one. He warns of false religion, a Christianity filled with marked up Bibles, but not lives marked by doing what the Bible actually teaches. Which one more describes you? Do enjoy memorizing gossipy facts more than you do memorizing the Scripture? Is it easier to discipline yourself to weekly care for your wardrobe than it is to daily spend time in Bible study and prayerful action? All true religion should lead to a deeper relationship with Christ. As we exercise our faith through the book of James, it ought to lead to a closer walk with Jesus, a closer guarding of our tongues, and a greater care for those who can’t care for themselves.

As GLBT Christians, our faith is often brought into question.  Those who question whether we can be true Christians and live a life of homosexuality or bisexuality are deceiving themselves about the Word of God.  Christ brought us a message of peace and love, not of antagonism and anger.  In Matthew 7:21-23, Jesus says:

"Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.  On that day many will say to me, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?' And then will I declare to them, 'I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness."

If we both hear the Word and do the Word, we are following the teachings of Jesus, and on the Judgement Day, Jesus will say to us, "We'll done, my good and faithful servant."  However, if we listen to the false teachings of Christ that have been defiled by the hearers and not the doers, then we will fall away from God's grace.  We must persevere, we must hear the word, do the word, and resist the false teachings.  If we do these things and accept the word of God with meekness, then we can be doers of the Word. 

When we hear our detractors, we must be quick to hear the true word of God, slow to speak so that we are not taken by our passions, and slow to anger so that we may prove our heavenly spirit.  When I see news stories like the one this week in which Westboro Baptist Church and their ilk blaming the Oklahoma tornadoes on God's wrath over the support of GLBT equality, it angers me partly because I know they are wrong and partly because they are merely adding to the suffering of those who have already suffered so much.  I think it should anger most people who believe in the true word of God and the teachings of Christ.  I then calm down and think of what Christ tells us to do and as James tells us, "be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger; for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God."  For people like Westboro Baptist Church, I can only pray that one day they will see the error of their ways.  It may only come in the afterlife when they are punished for their hatred, but one day, they will realize what they have done wrong.  They have been false teachers the ones that James warns of as followers of a false religion, a Christianity filled with marked up Bibles which only focus on a few incorrectly interpreted passages, but not lives marked by doing what the Bible actually teaches.  

I probably sound judgmental here about WBC, but I don't mean to sound that way.  I am using them as an extreme example.  I believe strongly in "Judge not, lest ye be judged." However, I did want to use an example of what I believe James is speaking of in the passage above.  Jesus was a champion of the meek, and I believe that if he walked the earth as a man today, as he did 2,000 years ago, then he would welcome GLBT Christians with open arms.  After all, we are Christians who believe in His core teachings of peace and love.

Moment of Zen: Summertime

School's out for summer.  It has finally arrived. Finally, a little freedom is at hand.

Last Day of School

No kids today, just paperwork to be done and I have to get my room ready for summer.  This won't be much of a post because I have had a horrendous headache.  It woke me up I. Te middle of the night Thursday night and it has been off and on in intensity since then. It's one of those where it is hard for me to even look at the screen because it looks so bright.  I just need to make it through tomorrow and possibly graduation if I'm feeling better.