Midnight cowboy can be seen as either
a) an extremely homophobic movie.
b) a film that partially deals with a changing consciousness as to the gay/straight binary (well, I'm not sayin' this is Hegel or something, but...).
c) a love story about two men (whether the relationship is sexual or not is not interesting).
Actually, I think there are aspects in the film that express all of these.
Apart from some rather gimmick-y moments of experimentation (a swinging Warhol party), Midnight cowboy is a quite simple story: Joe, a very naive person, goes to N.Y to be a hustler. For women. The reality of N.Y is not what he expected (the New York of this film is everything you'd expect from a movie from this period, just listen to Jon Voight talking...). He hooks up with Ratso, who promises to fix him up with "management". Even though this goes to hell, Ratso becomes his friend. Midnight cowboy is about street life. It tries hard to capture the gritty beat of New York. Sometimes it tries too hard. But the reason why I found this film quite watchable was not because of its status as a zeitgeist - movie. The heart of the film lies in how the relationship between Joe and Ratso is depicted. (For a far more interesting take on the life as a hustler in 60's USA - read John Rechy.)
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