[dogscoff]

Maybe the first gay regular character (although I am not so sure that Bashir wasn't just chasing Dax as a cover. ) but one of them (Voyager I think) had an episode where they visited a planet where everyone was gay. One of the alien scientists fell in love with one of the starfleet crew members of the opposite sex and it was all very scandalous. Her people ended up "reprograming" her or something if I recall correctly.

That was TNG. The aliens were all androgynous (sp?) and it one of them fell for Riker. The fool. There were some nice touches to that ep, actually, although it got a bit silly towards the end.

It's interesting that Trek should shy away from something like the gay issue. The first ever episode of TOS was ground-breaking (and scandalous) at the time for showing an inter-racial kiss. I guess nowadays they're too scared they'll upset all those fans who tune in just to see 7 of 9 or whatever other gratuitous T&A fodder they have in Enterprise.