Personally, I don't 100% agree with the entire article. I agree for it in the most part, but not completely.
There have been episodes where sexuality has been "dealt with", and where other sexualities have been explored. Whilst there hasn't been a specifically identified gay character, why do we assume they are all straight?
As hard to believe as it may be, not every character in every single show had a relationship, and they didn't appear in every show waving cards round saying "kiss me, i'm straight/gay/whatever". So how do we KNOW that every character is straight?
It's just as what was written: Trek (And sci-fi in general) tends to be a hi-tech transplant of people's current views. It deals with the social problems of the time, not the social problems of the future.
There is the point though (And this wasn't mentioned in the article) that since they are constantly meeting alien cultures, that the social problems of the future would be the same as today, because these new alien cultures would have their own beliefs.
Every time a new race appears, the entire philosophical debate on social tensions would flare up again. As much as society would be horrified by it, there will always be people who are outcasts at a particular time. Gays are just the ones that are being focussed on at the moment. For all we know, the people who will be discriminated against in the future are those that believe in a religion, white people, or even men.
Just because something is accepted today, doesn't mean it will be in the future. The opposite is obviously also true.
The fact that the article is about gay people means nothing in my mind. If the article had been written in the sixties, it would probably have been about black women or Russians.
If it was written in 10 years time, it would probably be written about something like smoking. Social attitudes change over time, and Trek has always been about pushing those boundaries.
As the article has said, gays on TV is a relatively recent thing. Just because it hasn't been shown yet, doesn't mean it never will be - if there's another series, that is... 8O
