As an Orthodox Christian who is gay myself, I really enjoyed this movie. I wonder how many of the people on this thread that are condemning it actually have SEEN it? I didn't view it as propaganda at all, although I will respect the opinion of others who view it as such. It is not so much a pro-gay movie as it is simply a movie that HUMANIZES the gay characters and has some sympathy for them. If you follow the movie closely, you will notice that one of the shepherds, Ennis, implies that he is a virgin very early in the movie, before any sexual activity begins. He is obviously a young man that is struggling with his sexual orientation and quite grieved by it. He doesn't want to admit that he is gay and appears quite ashamed of it. He tells fellow shepherd, Jack (who is it implied is sexually experienced in gay things), that he plans to marry in the fall. Ennis is simply doing what ANY man gay man in rural 1960s America would have done at the time: marry a woman to "cure" him of the gayness. We know now that that doesn't work. But you have to remember in the 1960s, homosexuality was still classified as a mental illness. Back then if a young man had the courage to admit that he was gay to his priest or his doctor, generally the advice he was given was to get married and see if heterosexual sex could "cure" him. And this is exactly what Ennis does. Furthermore, once Ennis gets married, he doesn't frequent gay bars or nightclubs (if even there were any there in rural Wyoming at the time, which I highly doubt). He is, at the beginning, a sincere husband and a loving father to his two children. It is only when he receives the postcard in the mail that Jack will be passing through town, that his gay passions outwardly manifest themselves. When Ennis's wife sees him and Jack kissing on the laundromat staircase, I cried. I felt so terribly sorry for the woman. The whole thing was just such a tragedy. Her heart is broken. She feels betrayed, bewildered, and fearful. And I certainly don't blame her for those feelings. I did NOT rejoice when his wife had her heart torn out like that. Nevertheless, that is a scene that straight Americans NEED to see, because it shows quite pointedly the devastating and destructive effect of that telling gay men to married straight women has: it doesn't work, and it produces heartache and tragedy for all involved. I know when I first confessed to my priest that I was gay, he suggested that I pair myself up with a woman. Perhaps she could "cure" me. I am so glad I did not. Who would want to be that woman? The experiental guneia pig to cure the man? If I had followed my priest's advice, I could very well have ended up in a marriage like Ennis did, trapped, unhappy and having destroyed a good woman in the process. I get the impression that the Orthodox Church really has no idea how to minister to gay people and wishes we would all just go away. Now when I bring up being gay in confession, all my priest can tell me is "I don't know what to tell you." So I guess that is the lot of the gay Orthodox Christian, live alone, be depressed the rest of your life, never know love or being loved, and die alone. And don't tell anyone else about it either, or you'll be called a pervert or like one person in my parish referred to me as a "faggot." I find it ironic that the Orthodox Church can condemn gay people, yet offer absolutely no ministries to assist us with our struggles.
