Why are there no gays on "Star Trek"?

I stumbled over this old Salon.com article, "Gay 'Trek'", cataloging the complaints of gay sci-fi fans that none of the "Star Trek" series portrayed gays in space. The beef is based on the idea that since "Star Trek" is supposed to portray a enlightened (read: liberal) social Utopia of tolerance and understanding, there should be open displays of same-sex love and affection between bumpy-foreheaded people of all (prosthetic) colors and species.

While it catalogs the rank homobigotry - "homophobia" is a misnomer - of some of the Trek producers, what it overlooks is the cyborg elephant in the spaceship: Genetic engineering. It's said that homosexuality is born into people and not simply a "lifestyle choice", so if a preference for tight jeans is in the genes, why is it impossible to conceive of those genes being altered?

If the promise of genetic engineering (in conjunction with an agressive abortion policy for fetuses that can't be fixed) is to weed out all the negative genetic flaws, such as Down's Syndrome, left-handedness and a taste for Kenny G records, what's to say that in the future homosexuality will be eradicated medically as an undesirable flaw, like frizzy hair?

While it's SOP to blame the lack of [oppressed grievance group] on TV shows because of fearful racist/sexist/bigoted white men, in this case, pertaining to a future with faster-than-light travel and teleporters, it falls flat.

The reason there are no gays on "Star Trek" is because there are no gays in the future