There are plenty of controversies swirling around Paul Greengrass' just released United 93: it's too soon for a movie about 9/11; it's immoral to make money from such a tragedy; the event does not lend itself to "entertainment."

But for some in the gay community, the controversy has been how the movie portrays Mark Bingham, the openly gay man widely believed to have been one of the driving forces in the passenger's fight to take back the plane from the terrorists.

The issue of Mark's sexuality first arose in the days after 9/11, when the details of the murdered passengers on Flight 93 began to emerge. We learned Jeremy Glick was a judo expert. Todd Beamer was a devout Christian and a father of two with one on the way. Lauren Grandcolas was pregnant with her first child after years of trying. And Mark Bingham was a tall a rugby player who owned his own public relations firm.

He also happened to be gay.

"He first came out to me in 1991," says Alice Hoagland, Mark's mother. "It was hard. I was vaguely anti-gay then. I was a midwestern girl."

Only the fact Mark was gay stirred controversy as many media reports failed to mention it, despite the fact that he himself had been open about it. Indeed, it was Matt Hall, the man Mark was currently dating, who dropped him off at Newark Airport on September 11. "Paul Greengrass wanted to know everything about that morning," says Matt Hall. "What shirt he was wearing. Which shoulder he put the strap of his bag over."

That scene was originally intended to part of United 93.

I spoke with Craig Woythaler, the actor cast to play Matt Hall. Craig told me he filmed that scene with Cheyenne Jackson, the openly gay actor who played Mark. Says Woythaler, "It showed me dropping Cheyenne off at the airport. We improvised conversation and it was a great rush to get him to the plane and then we said good-bye with a hug and a quick kiss."

Woythaler added that Greengrass wanted the hug and kiss to make it clear they were a couple.

Unfortunately, that scene never made it into the movie (nor did any of the others showing passengers arriving). Woythaler believes the weather that day is to blame. “When we filmed that first day at Newark airport, which is when we did the arrivals, the weather was absolutely terrible and everybody knows the weather was absolutely gorgeous that day [9/11].” Since the crew only had two days to film at Newark, it turned out to be impossible to re-shoot the scenes.

So an opportunity was lost, but at least homophobia was not to blame this time.

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