James Franco and Zachary Quinto as gay lovers in ‘Michael’

The first still from the Gus Van Sant produced Michael, starring James Franco and Zachary Quinto, has been released by The Hollywood Reporter.

Michael tells the story of Michael Glatze, a writer for the former gay magazine XY and co-founder of the magazine Young Gay America (Y.G.A.), who infamously denounced his homosexuality, became a pastor, and married a woman.

“Homosexuality came easy to me, because I was already weak,” Glatze wrote on WorldNetDaily.com after denouncing his homosexuality, and his writing career at XY and Y.G.A. “Homosexuality, delivered to young minds, is by its very nature pornographic,” he continued. In a second WorldNetDaily article, he said that he was “repulsed to think about homosexuality” and promised that he was “going to do what I can to fight it.”

A New York Times article by Benoit Denizet-Lewis titled “My Ex-Gay Friend” documents his friendship with Glatze which evolved from spending all night at gay raves, to visiting Glatze in Wyoming where he settled down to lead a straight life and preach his anti-gay idealogy. Denizet-Lewis’s article is the basis of the film Michael which sees Franco portraying Glatze, with Quinto starring as his boyfriend Bennett.

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