It may seem hard to believe now, but for most of the month that "Brokeback Mountain" has been in theaters, it has been largely ignored by right-wing groups. Religious conservatives abhor the film's content but say they don't want to give free publicity to a movie that already has generated an avalanche of it. No organized boycotts or protests have greeted the film, and the Sandy theater remains the only one in North America to yank it from its schedule.

In this way, Miller's snub of "Brokeback Mountain" raises questions that until now were not being asked in Utah about the movie. Such as: With scores of R-rated films, including some with gay sexual themes, released in theaters every year, why is this movie raising a ruckus? How is a gay love story more morally offensive than other movies - such as "Hostel," a horror film that shows sadists fulfilling their depraved fantasies by paying to torture other people; or the stoner comedy "Grandma's Boy," which features drug use in almost every scene - now playing at Miller's theaters?

And what exactly about "Brokeback Mountain" do some people find so threatening?

The short answer, of course, is: men having sex. The longer answer is more complicated.

"There are a lot of other movies out there that are just as objectionable [as 'Brokeback Mountain']," said conservative crusader Gayle Ruzicka, president of the Utah Eagle Forum. "Would I like theater owners to pull those, too? Yes."

As of Friday, Miller wasn't saying why the film was yanked. It certainly wasn't because of its poor financial prospects. At the Broadway movie theater in downtown Salt Lake City, "Brokeback Mountain" set box-office records when it opened Dec. 30. The movie also became the top per-screen grosser at the Century 16 cinemas in South Salt Lake when it opened there Jan. 6, ahead of "The Chronicles of Narnia" and "King Kong." After five weeks in limited release, "Brokeback Mountain" has earned more than $22 million - solid numbers for a movie likely to be shunned by much of straight-male America.

In case you haven't heard, "Brokeback Mountain" is a drama about a secret affair between two Wyoming ranch hands, played by Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal, who fall in love when they're hired to herd sheep together on a lonely mountainside in the summer of 1963. Although both men marry women, they meet regularly over the next 20 years for secluded trysts. Ledger and Gyllenhaal kiss several times onscreen, and the movie contains a much-discussed scene in which the two men have brief, frenzied and almost fully clothed sexual intercourse in a tent.

That scene understandably may make even open-minded moviegoers squirm. But it's arguably less disturbing than the bloody violence in such acclaimed mainstream films as "Silence of the Lambs," "Natural Born Killers" or "Kill Bill" - let alone "Hostel," which is rated R for what the Motion Picture Association of America calls "brutal scenes of torture and violence, strong sexual content, language and drug use."

Several Oscar-nominated movies, including "Deliverance," "The Prince of Tides" and "Pulp Fiction," also have graphic depictions of male rape that drew less attention than the consensual sex scene in "Brokeback Mountain."

"So many movies show violence and it's OK," said Clark Monk, an openly gay Utah rodeo cowboy. "And yet society can't watch a movie about two people who love each other? To me, that's far better than blood, guts and gore."

Film critics have long wondered whether the MPAA, Hollywood's moral police, has two different standards when it comes to rating sex and violence onscreen. Maybe it's because we live with violence almost every day on the local news, in video games and in action movies. Gay sex, on the other hand, is foreign to most of us and therefore still packs the power to offend. In a column last year, Salt Lake Tribune film critic Sean P. Means questioned whether the MPAA gives gay-themed movies harsher ratings than movies with equivalent heterosexual content.

Onscreen sex between women doesn't seem to provoke audiences like sex between men. The gay sex in "Brokeback Mountain" is less explicit than a nude love scene between Naomi Watts and Laura Elena Harring in the Oscar-nominated "Mulholland Drive," which played multiplexes without fuss in 2001. It's also less raunchy than the hetero sex audiences have witnessed for decades in such mainstream hits as "Basic Instinct" and "The 40-Year-Old Virgin."

Gay advocates say that same-sex relationships are more acceptable to mainstream movie audiences when they are portrayed as campy, as in 1996's "The Birdcage," about a gay couple who pretend to be straight to impress their son's in-laws; or sexless, as on the TV sitcom "Will and Grace." The characters in "Brokeback Mountain" are not effeminate and therefore harder to dismiss as deviants, gays say. They could be your friend or neighbor. Maybe they could be you.

"That's the idea that's frightening [to mainstream audiences]," said Jerry Rapier, an openly gay Salt Lake City theater producer. "These characters have none of the stereotypical signs that people associate with a gay person. They're not hairdressers, or guys with a lisp."

If the lovers in "Brokeback Mountain" were hairdressers in San Francisco's Castro neighborhood or in West Hollywood, few people would make a big deal about the movie. But they're rural cowboys, perhaps the most masculine of American icons. Ranchers and other modern-day rural Westerners have called "Brokeback Mountain" a "slap in the face" to their way of life.

Religion, of course, also plays a big role. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, like Catholics and Baptists, believes that engaging in homosexuality is a sin. In the LDS Church, such behavior often leads to excommunication.

"Let's not sugarcoat it - for a great number of people, this is getting into immoral territory," said Doug Wright, a talk-show host who reviews movies for KSL Radio, which is owned by the LDS Church. Wright gave the film three stars out of four but cautioned his listeners about its content. "It's a hard movie to recommend," he said. "There were some very uncomfortable moments in the movie for me."

Ruzicka said she is troubled most by the main characters' deceptions in hiding the affair from their wives.

"This movie is about adultery and men who are cheating and lying to their children and their families," said the right-wing activist, who has not seen the film. "It's interesting that there's such a to-do over [the film's cancellation]. What if one of the alternative theaters said they won't show 'The Chronicles of Narnia' because it has a [pro-Christian] religious theme?"

Some conservatives, without seeing "Brokeback Mountain," have dismissed it as homosexual propaganda. But despite its provocative subject, the film has no overt political agenda. And many who've seen it agree that in some respects, it's not even a gay movie. As a sweeping, tragic love story, "Brokeback Mountain" has more in common with "Titanic," the most popular movie ever, than an art film steeped in the urban gay lifestyle.

Ultimately, observers say, the Utah hubbub over "Brokeback Mountain" has less to do with its content than its high profile. The vast majority of sexually provocative indie films screen only at art-house theaters in urban neighborhoods before audiences unlikely to be offended by them. But "Brokeback Mountain" has dominated critics' awards and is considered a favorite for the Best Picture Oscar, landing it in eight Wasatch Front movie theaters and on radar screens of people who otherwise wouldn't be aware of it. The media, which gravitate to controversy, also has stirred debate over the movie.

"If awareness had not been raised about the film, it might have come and gone," said Deseret Morning News movie reviewer Jeff Vice, president of the Utah Film Critics Association. "But it's everywhere. You can't turn around without hearing an interview about the film or hearing about it winning an award somewhere."

This critical praise may have been what led Miller to book "Brokeback Mountain" in the first place. In an interview with KCPW-FM's Jonathan Brown on Jan. 5, shortly before the movie was pulled from Jordan Commons, Miller cited the film's seven Golden Globe nominations as a sign of its potentially broad appeal.

"Even though there are premises in ["Brokeback Mountain"] that I wouldn't personally subscribe to, if you look at the credentials of the movie . . . that would suggest it's more attuned . . . for [the] mainstream than some of the other [movies] we've projected," Miller said. "I have to let the market speak. It'll be interesting to see how it's received."

But as Brown pressed him on how the film would go over with his conservative suburban audience base, Miller seemed to reconsider.

"It is possible that the content of this [film] . . . is offensive enough to a large enough segment of the population that this is one that slipped by our screening process," added Miller, who said he would not see the film. "Maybe I've been a little naive and not paid proper attention to it and let it slip through the cracks. If I have, then I made a mistake."

Maybe he did. But in the long term, history will judge "Brokeback Mountain" not on its attendant hype or controversies but on the movie itself. And that's the way it should be.

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Contact Brandon Griggs at griggs@sltrib.com or 801-257-8689. Send comments about this story to livingeditor@sltrib.com.