Brokeback Mountain has been released onto DVD and I’ll probably pick up a copy sometime this weekend.  I might skip through it when I get it back home but I doubt I’ll sit through the whole thing for quite a while.  As I’ve said before, I am not really up to watching tragic and doomed love affairs these days.  But after Hollywood’s giving it the pie in the face last month, I figured the least I could do was my part to help DVD sales.

While scanning google for articles about the DVD, I came across a little tidbit in the Deseret News, which all the more interesting because that paper is owned outright by the Mormon church.  It’s about Larry Miller, the Utah creep who canceled the showing of Brokeback at his theater right at the last minute, while ticket holders were in line, allegedly after he was told what the movie was about.  And I say, allegedly…

Miller says he knew he’d catch some flak for pulling the film about homosexual cowboys from his theaters,  but did so because he’s very worried about the break-up of the traditional American family.

In his words, he wanted to draw a line in the sand by not showing the film.

Miller said, "Getting away from the traditional families, which I look at as the fundamental building block of our society, is a very dangerous thing." 

Oh really?  Well…here’s what Scott Pierce in the Mormon owned Deseret News had to say about that…

 Miller, of course, has every right to his opinion. And every right to choose what movies to show in his theaters. And we should be grateful to him for standing up for "traditional families."

Just like he does with the TV station he owns, KJZZ.  Let’s look at a few things airing on Ch. 14 next week:

• "Friends," which is replete with extramarital sex, plots about porn and even homosexuality.

• "Cheers," which revolves around an unrepentant womanizer.

• Various forms of extramarital sex and vulgar shenanigans on such sitcoms as "Just Shoot Me," "Becker" and "The Parkers."

• "ER" — sex and a decidedly pro-gay agenda.

And here are a few of the movies KJZZ will be airing:

• "The List," about a high-priced prostitute.

• "Her Best Friend’s Husband," about a woman who has an affair with her best friend’s husband.

• "Primary Suspect," about a man who kills his wife.

Miller’s TV station it turns out, also carries Montel Williams, Tyra Banks, and Maury.  Swell family values fare that.  But it gets even more ironic:

Oh, and don’t forget next week’s eight airings of "Will & Grace," which not only features healthy, happy gay guys but is replete with the most off-color humor you’ll find in a network sitcom.

Will and Grace.  Miller’s TV station shows Will and Grace, and he balks at showing Brokeback Mountain in his movie theater?  No.  I think not.  Pierce goes on to complain about what Miller does show…

This week alone Miller’s theaters are showing R-rated "Basic Instinct 2," "Slither," "Inside Man," "Find Me Guilty" and "V for Vendetta."

Not bad.  But wait…it gets even better…

And one of the biggest stories the Jazz generated this season was about how the wife of one of the players granted him the right to one extramarital sexual encounter per year.

"The Jazz" would be that Utah NBA basketball team that Miller owns.  I guess more then one extra-marital affair a year might count as a dangerous thing for the Traditional American Family.  Mind you…this criticism comes from a newspaper that almost certainly welcomed Miller’s canceling showings of Brokeback Mountain, and would have probably liked it very well thank you if the film never saw the light of day anywhere in the United States, let alone Utah.  But Miller is no more a true believe then George Bush.  What Miller, like Bush, knows is when to throw a little human flesh to the mob, and from whose skin.

Here’s what I think: Miller knew damn well what the subject matter of Brokeback Mountain was, and to him it was just another booking until someone(s) in the powerful Mormon church had a chat with him and told him they’d like it very much thank you if he just pulled it from the venue.   R rated fun and games for sexually ignorant and repressed heterosexuals in Utah is one thing, but a film that so graphically shows how ignorance and prejudice have utterly destroyed the emotional lives of gay and lesbian people in America is more then the market will bear.  Particularly when that market is so deeply implicated in that destruction.  Miller can show Will and Grace and the religious right may bellyache about it, but Will and Grace is lite TV entertainment that manages to have its cake and eat it too, re-enforcing many gay stereotypes along the way while laughing along with them like it’s all an in-joke.  Brokeback on the other hand, is desolate landscape with a finger pointed right back at hate.  That simply cannot be tolerated.