ABSTRACT
Multiple gay rights activists and their allies have drawn parallels between their struggle and the civil rights movement. In 2015, the US Supreme Court struck down all state laws banning sex-sex marriage; today, 29 nations of the world permit gay marriage. For decades, censorship made overt reference to gay sex all but impossible, and homophobia made empathetic depictions virtually out of the question. In the spring of 1958, Sam Zimbalist, an MGM producer, approached Gore Vidal to work as a script doctor for Ben-Hur, which multiple screenwriters had already failed to turn into a workable screenplay. In the Spring of 1979, Friedkin announced plans to shoot Cruising, his second motion picture with a gay theme.
