"I tend to create these really flawed human beings," stated Roos. "They are easy to judge, but I end up forgiving them and loving them."

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Indeed, wrote reviewer David Carr, "everyone in the film careens from dispossession to redemption in the space of 128 minutes."

Along the way, a woman must wonder anew what became of the baby she gave up when she was a teen-ager, and a gay man suspects that his partner was the sperm donor who is the biological father of a lesbian couple's young son. Through the reflections on relationships by these and other characters, in Happy Endings, as in his other films, wrote Alissa Quart of Film Comment, Roos "let[s] us know that our best hope lies in the families we make, as opposed to the ones we're born into."

Roos's upcoming project is a distinct departure from his previous work: he is writing the screenplay for a film adaptation of John Grogan's best-seller Marley and Me (2005), the story of a rambunctious and slightly neurotic Labrador retriever puppy with a talent for creating havoc who becomes, through his loving nature and loyalty, a cherished part of the Grogan family. The film, to be directed by Shawn Levy, has a tentative release date of 2008.

Roos appeared on-screen in Lisa Ades and Lesli Klainberg's Fabulous!: The Story of Queer Cinema (2006), a documentary chronicling gay and lesbian characters and themes in films from the late 1940s through the early years of the twenty-first century.

In a 2005 panel discussion Roos opined that although there are more gay characters than ever on both the big and small screens, general audiences are not entirely comfortable accepting them as romantic figures. He further stated that he believed that it was still too risky for a lead male actor to come out as gay because "there's a very intimate relationship that the audience has with that face on the screen . . . . Until homosexuality is less disturbing to the population at large, it's distracting. The straight audience can't jump on board enough to suspend their disbelief . . . . The fear, the bigotry, runs very, very deep."

As for the future, he predicted that gay lead actors "will come out when America deserves them to come out. We can't just expect them to just take this incredible leap of faith, to not to be able to do the one thing that they love for the rest of their life because of the bigotry that's out there."

On the other hand, he stated categorically, "I think all writers should come out. We're not in front of the camera."

In Hollywood, Roos has worked not only behind the camera, but also behind the scene, as a "script doctor," called in to rescue many a foundering project. He refuses to reveal which films he has salvaged--although his contributions are an open secret in the industry--citing his gratitude to generous others who helped him early in his career.

Roos has appeared at numerous glbtq film festivals, including three at his alma mater, Notre Dame, but he severed that connection after the 2006 event, prior to which the school's president, the Reverend John Jenkins, had condemned the name of the Queer Film Festival as one that would "celebrate and promote homosexual activity" in contravention of Catholic doctrine.

"I will never come back to Notre Dame again--ever," declared Roos. "When I come here, all I feel is hate. They don't want me here. They don't want me to have my daughter [in the same house] with my boyfriend. They think I will burn in hell. Would Anne Frank go back to Bergen-Belsen?"

Adopting a child in 2005 was a source of great joy for Roos and Bucatinsky. Roos supports a woman's right to choose abortion but was glad to find a woman who not only decided to carry through her pregnancy but also chose a gay couple as the adoptive parents for the child, who was born in Wisconsin. Roos and Bucatinsky were able to file an amended birth certificate in California, with both of their names listed as parents.

In speaking of his goals in a 1999 interview in The Advocate, Roos said, "It's about visibility above all, and telling people there's more to life. Even films like In & Out and The Birdcage at least show we exist. And that's very different from when I was growing up."

Since cinema began, Hollywood has been fascinated with finding ways of representing homosexuality.

Although few gay actors have been permitted the luxury of openness, many of them have challenged and helped reconfigure notions of masculinity and, to a lesser extent, of homosexuality.

Gay, lesbian, and bisexual film directors have been a vital creative presence in cinema since the medium's inception over one hundred years ago.

Historically, the Roman Catholic Church may be the institution most responsible for the suffering of individuals involved in same-sex sexual relationships.

Although film may be a director's rather than a writer's medium, gay and lesbian screenwriters have made significant contributions to both mainstream and independent film.

Playwright Mart Crowley deserves honor for having blazed the trail for gay-themed theater with his 1969 groundbreaking play The Boys in the Band.