Editing Gene Roddenberry (section)

==Personal life==
{{main|Personal life of Gene Roddenberry}}
[[File:Rod and Majel Roddenberry Star Trek Convention Las Vegas 20080814.jpg|thumb|right|Majel Barrett-Roddenberry and Rod Roddenberry in Las Vegas, August 2008]]
While at [[Los Angeles City College]], Roddenberry began dating Eileen-Anita Rexroat.<ref name=alexander48/> They became engaged before Roddenberry left Los Angeles during his military service,<ref>[[#alexander1995|Alexander (1995)]]: p. 58</ref> and they married on June 20, 1942, at the chapel at Kelly Field.<ref name=alex59/> They had two daughters, Darleen Anita<ref name=alex103/> and Dawn Allison.<ref name=alex163>[[#alexander1995|Alexander (1995)]]: p. 163</ref> During his time in the LAPD, Roddenberry was known to have had affairs with secretarial staff.<ref>[[#alexander1995|Alexander (1995)]]: p. 123</ref> Before his work on ''Star Trek'', he began relationships with [[Nichelle Nichols]] and [[Majel Barrett]].<ref name=beyond>{{cite journal|last1=Sterling|first1=Ian|title=Uhura and Beyond|journal=Starlog|date=January 1995|issue=210|pages=47–49|url=https://archive.org/stream/starlog_magazine-210/210#page/n47/mode/1up|access-date=April 17, 2015}}</ref> Nichols wrote about their relationship in her autobiography ''Beyond Uhura'' only after Roddenberry's death.<ref name=nichols130>[[#nichols1994|Nichols (1994)]]: p. 130</ref> At the time, Roddenberry wanted to remain in an [[open relationship]] with both women,<ref>[[#nichols1994|Nichols (1994)]]: p. 132</ref> but Nichols, recognizing Barrett's devotion to him, ended the affair as she did not want to be "the other woman to the other woman".<ref>[[#nichols1994|Nichols (1994)]]: p. 133</ref>

Barrett and Roddenberry had an apartment together by the opening weeks of ''Star Trek''.<ref>[[#engel1994|Engel (1994)]]: p. 103</ref> He had planned to divorce Eileen after the first season of the show, but when the show was renewed, he delayed doing so, fearing that he would not have enough time to deal with both the divorce and ''Star Trek''. He moved out of the family home on August&nbsp;9, 1968, two weeks after the marriage of his daughter Darleen.<ref>[[#alexander1995|Alexander (1995)]]: pp. 352–353</ref><ref>[[#alexander1995|Alexander (1995)]]: p. 356</ref> In 1969, while scouting locations in Japan for MGM for ''Pretty Maids All in a Row'',<ref name=engel139>[[#engel1994|Engel (1994)]]: p. 139</ref> he proposed to Barrett by telephone.<ref name=hise53/> They were married in a [[Shinto]] ceremony, as Roddenberry had considered it "sacrilegious" to have an American minister in Japan perform the ceremony.<ref name=hise53/> Roddenberry and Barrett had a son together, Eugene Jr., commonly and professionally known as [[Rod Roddenberry]], in February 1974.<ref name=hise53>[[#vanhise1992|Van Hise (1992)]]: p. 53</ref>

From 1975 until his death, Roddenberry maintained an extramarital relationship with his executive assistant, [[Susan Sackett]].<ref>[[#sackett2002|Sackett (2002)]]: pp. 70</ref>

===Religious views===
Roddenberry grew up a [[Southern Baptist]];<ref name=hise7>[[#vanhise1992|Van Hise (1992)]]: p. 7</ref> however, as an adult, he rejected religion, and considered himself a [[humanism|humanist]].<ref name=alex167 /> He began questioning religion around the age of 14, and came to the conclusion that it was "nonsense".<ref name=hise7/> As a child, he served in the [[choir]] at his local church, but often substituted lyrics as he sang hymns.<ref name=hise7/> Early in his writing career, he received an award from the [[American Baptist Convention]] for "skillfully writing Christian truth and the application of Christian principles into commercial, dramatic TV scripts".<ref name=alex167 /> For several years, he corresponded with John M. Gunn of the [[National Council of Churches]] regarding the application of Christian teachings in television series. However, Gunn stopped replying after Roddenberry wrote in a letter: "But you must understand that I am a complete pagan, and consume enormous amounts of bread, having found the Word more spice than nourishment, so I am interested in a statement couched in dollars and cents of what this means to the Roddenberry treasury."<ref>[[#alexander1995|Alexander (1995)]]: p. 169</ref>

Roddenberry said of Christianity, "How can I take seriously a God-image that requires that I prostrate myself every seven days and praise it? That sounds to me like a very insecure personality."<ref name=hise7/> At one point, he worked a similar opinion, which was to have been stated by a Vulcan, into the plot for ''Star Trek: The God Thing''.<ref name=starlog2p13>{{cite journal|last1=Burns|first1=Jim|title=The Star Trek movie|journal=Starlog|issue=2|page=13|url=https://archive.org/stream/starlog_magazine-002/002#page/n12/mode/1up|date=November 1976|access-date=January 1, 2015}}</ref> He had a similar disdain for [[Judaism]]. Despite working closely with [[Jewish]] writers and stars such as Shatner, Nimoy, and Koenig for the series, Nimoy said of Roddenberry, "Gene was [[antisemitic]], clearly," qualifying that Roddenberry was anti-religious, seeing Jews as a religious group, adding "but I saw examples not only of [Roddenberry] practicing antisemitism, but of him being callous about other peoples' differences as well.” As with Christianity, Roddenberry similarly dismissed that there were any deliberately Jewish principles or allusions included in ''Star Trek'', telling a journalist, "You Jews have a lamentable habit of identifying those characteristics in a society that you deem positive and then taking credit for inventing them.”<ref>{{cite web|url=https://jewishjournal.com/commentary/opinion/164916/|title=My Jewish Trek|publisher=Tribe Media Corp.|accessdate=2024-09-24|author=Sheldon Teitelbaum|date=March 18, 2015 }}</ref>

Before his death, Roddenberry became close friends with philosopher [[Charles Musès]], who said that Roddenberry's views were "a far cry from [[atheism]]".<ref>[[#fern1994|Fern (1994)]]: p. 28</ref> Roddenberry explained his position thus: "It's not true that I don't believe in God. I believe in a kind of God. It's just not other people's God. I reject religion. I accept the notion of God."<ref>[[#fern1994|Fern (1994)]]: p. 66</ref> He had an ongoing interest in other people's experiences with religion,<ref>[[#fern1994|Fern (1994)]]: p. 42</ref> and called [[Catholic Church|Catholicism]] "a very beautiful religion. An art form."<ref>[[#fern1994|Fern (1994)]]: p. 110</ref> However, he said that he dismissed all [[organized religion]]s, saying that for the most part, they acted like a "substitute brain... and a very malfunctioning one".<ref>[[#fern1994|Fern (1994)]]: p. 111</ref> Roddenberry was also critical of how the public looked at certain religions, noting that when the [[King David Hotel bombing]] took place in 1946, the American public accepted it as the action of freedom fighters, whereas a car bombing by a [[Muslim]] in [[Beirut]] is condemned as a [[terrorist]] act. While he agreed that both parties were wrong in their use of violence, he said that the actions of both were undertaken because of their strong religious beliefs.<ref>[[#asherman1988|Asherman (1988)]]: p. 7</ref>

According to [[Ronald D. Moore]], Roddenberry "felt very strongly that contemporary Earth religions would be gone by the 23rd century".<ref>{{cite web|url=http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Memory_Alpha:AOL_chats/Ronald_D._Moore/ron012.txt|access-date=January 20, 2014|author=Ronald D. Moore|title=AOL chats Ronald D. Moore}}</ref> [[Brannon Braga]] said that Roddenberry made it known to the writers of ''Star Trek'' and ''Star Trek: The Next Generation'' that religion, superstition, and mystical thinking were not to be included.<ref>{{cite conference | last = Braga | first = Brannon | title = Every religion has a mythology | book-title = International Atheist Conference | place = Reykjavik, Iceland | date = June 24, 2006 | url =http://sidmennt.is/2006/08/16/every-religion-has-a-mythology/|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140212061150/http://sidmennt.is/2006/08/16/every-religion-has-a-mythology/|archive-date=February 12, 2014 | access-date = May 11, 2009 }}</ref> Even a mention of marriage in a script for an early episode of ''The Next Generation'' resulted in Roddenberry's chastising the writers.<ref name="Engel 1994 p. 247"/> Nicholas Meyer said that ''Star Trek'' had evolved "into sort of a secular parallel to the [[Catholic Mass]]".<ref>[[#fern1994|Fern (1994)]]: p. 112</ref> Roddenberry compared the franchise to his own philosophy by saying: "Understand that ''Star Trek'' is more than just my political philosophy, my racial philosophy, my overview on life and the human condition."<ref>[[#nichols1994|Nichols (1994)]]: p. 14</ref> He was awarded the 1991 Humanist Arts Award from the [[American Humanist Association]].<ref>{{cite web|title=From the AHA Archives: Gene Roddenberry|url=http://americanhumanist.org/HNN/details/2012-08-from-the-aha-archives-gene-roddenberry|publisher=American Humanist Association|access-date=April 26, 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120821000117/http://www.americanhumanist.org/HNN/details/2012-08-from-the-aha-archives-gene-roddenberry|archive-date=August 21, 2012}}</ref>