Really? It's tangential? How many people are being kicked out of churches for Star Wars weddings? Can't they just go to the place where people are marrying ducks now that gay marriage is legal in several states.
Yes, it's tangential in the sense that both cases involve discrimination - it's just that
you don't see one as discriminatory because... well... I'm not sure why. You try to boil it down to an issue of numbers. I'm curious, does it really matter if one person is discriminated against instead of one million? Tell us, how many people does it take before discrimination becomes wrong? A hundred? A thousand? A hundred thousand?
discrimination based on sexual orientation is a tangential issue?
No - but the point of the example is that just about any choice you make involves discrimination. No shirt, no shoes, no service? You're discriminating against those who like to go topless or shoeless. Why is that acceptable?
why are you trying to trivialize a human rights issue with this silly Star Trek example of yours
Except I'm not trying to trivialize this. I support the rights of gay people to get married and I don't think that the government should be able to decide who can and cannot get married; I believe that "marriage" as we know it today, should be split into two components: a civil and a religious component. The civil component should be available to consenting adults without regard for sex, orientation or anything else really. The religious components is up to whatever religious organization those getting married want to use and can employ its own criteria, but it's just the "cherry" on top of the proverbial sundae - it confers nothing special in the legal sense, over the civil marriage.
But I digress. The example I cited doesn't trivialize any human rights issue but highlights something imporant: you claim to not like discrimination, but in reality that's bullshit. What you don't like is when people discriminate based on factors that you personally find offensive, and that is what you wish to control.