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Canada's Largest Catholic Paper Lauds Gay Propaganda Film Brokeback Mountain

By John-Henry Westen

TORONTO, February 15, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The Catholic Register is Canada's oldest and largest national weekly Catholic newspaper. Owned by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Toronto, the Register is considered one of the most influential religious publications in the country. 

Associate Editor Michael Swan writes his review of Brokeback Mountain and other movies in the cover article of the current issue of the Register.  While the film has been criticised by Christian reviewers for it's promotion of homosexual sex relationships, Swan lauds the film as if it were a Christian masterpiece.

"It's no accident that the first half of Brokeback Mountain is filled with lush Christian imagery which recalls Jesus the good shepherd," writes Swan. 

The story-line which tells of the sexual attraction between two male cowboys who engage repeatedly in sodomy while having wives and children, seeks to give public acceptance to homosexual relationships. It uses all the artistry and emotional pull of the celebrated film Sense and Sensibility which was, as was Brokeback Mountain, directed by the very talented Ang Lee. 

Steven Bennett, a former homosexual who spent 11 years in homosexual relationships and is now happily married to his wife and has children, has condemned the film as "anti-family" saying that it "glorifies homosexuality."  Bennett adds, "I pray Americans don't fall for this homosexual propaganda."

Beyond Christians and ex-gays, the film has been recognized by secular reviews as a prime tool for convincing society to value sexual relationships between people of the same gender.  A Newsweek review of the film states: "Brokeback feels like a landmark film. No American film before has portrayed love between two men as something this pure and sacred. As such, it has the potential to change the national conversation and to challenge people's ideas about the value and validity of same-sex relationships."

But for Swan, "The movie is not concerned with either condemning or advocating homosexuality."  Swan continues, "Homosexuality is a fact. Director Ang Lee is interested in how we face the facts - with the authentic human kindness that truth demands, or with lies which justify our violence and loathing of other people."

The film depicts the homosexual acts as occurring on top of a mountain, depicting the scenes graphically.

Swan, writing of the mountain experiences depicted says: "When the gay cowboy lovers first discover a way to be authentic with each other - truthful about their basic sexual attractions and the source of their happiness in each other - they achieve a resemblance to truth itself."

Swan adds: "When they come down off the mountain they return to a world capable of murder, a society that demands lies from those who are different and just about everyone else."

The film is based on and remains faithful to the writings of Annie Proulx who wrote intentionally to present 'homophobia', or opposition to homosexuality, as an evil and destructive force in society.  Moreover, Proulx writings were explicitly pornographic as is the the first sodomy scene in the film.  
 
Yet, Swan says "Lee's movie is based on a story by one of America's best writers, E. Annie Proulx, who has a thoroughly Catholic sense of tragedy. In Brokeback Mountain tragedy is not the mere death of a hero - for there are no true heroes here - but how life separates us from our true selves, from one another and from God in exactly that order."

Another review of the movie by John Bentley Mays in the same issue of the Register is far less praising. However, although Mays relates the two men's sad relationship portrayed by the movie, like Swan, he gives it credibility as a serious work that other Christian writers say the movie does not deserve. Mays also appears to dismiss many of the critics as going too far by not recognizing some of the positive aspects of the production and dismisses the idea that the film is homosexual propaganda.

Mays writes "it is a tale about the infinitely sad outcome of sexual obsession, and about the havoc that disordered passion can wreak on sinners and the innocent alike." And then, without taking the step of stating the graphic movie is unsuitable for viewing, the Catholic reviewer takes the morally neutral position of only stating, "Which is not a recommendation that you see this movie. It’s just an attempt to set the record straight about a film that’s bound to be talked about for a long time to come."

Contact
Cardinal Aloysius Ambrozic
Catholic Pastoral Centre
1155 Yonge Street
Toronto, Ontario, M4T 1W2
Telephone: (416) 934-0606, ext. 609; FAX: (416) 934-3452

See Michael Swan's Catholic Register review of Brokeback Mountain here:
http://www.catholicregister.org/modules.php?op=modload&name=PagEd&file=i...

See Mays' review
http://www.catholicregister.org/modules.php?op=modload&name=PagEd&file=i...

See related LifeSiteNews.com articles
USCCB Changes Rating on Brokeback Mountain to Morally Offensive
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2005/dec/05121607.html

Hollywood ‘Homosexualizing’ America
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2006/jan/06011807.html

Catholic Conference Praised ‘Brokeback Mountain’ Banned in Utah
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2006/jan/06011204.html

Other reviews:
Reviewers Call 'Brokeback Mountain' Twisted - Gay love story carries a high "ick" factor
http://www.family.org/cforum/news/a0038874.cfm

'Brokeback Mountain': Rape of the Marlboro Man
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=48076

Brokeback - Understanding Propaganda
http://www.rense.com/general69/prop.htm

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