Oddly, there's more outrage over the perceived damage the film will do to the hallowed masculine image of cowboys. A story about the movie in the Casper (Wyoming) Star-Tribune -- cited by Matt Drudge -- quotes lifelong resident and playwright Sandy Dixon as saying she doesn't know a single gay cowboy: "There's nothing better than plain old cowboys and the plain old history without embellishing it to suit everyone." Or, as Knight puts it: "A cowboy who's lusting after his buddy isn't fit to wear cowboy boots." (Curtis Monk, who leads an AIDS-awareness program and also coordinates events for Wyoming Equality, tends to disagree. "I alone personally know 15 gay cowboys who come to our dances.")

But Knight is really fired up about the affront to the ghosts of westerns past: "I think this shows that Hollywood can pervert anything. Part of the enduring appeal of westerns is the display of brotherhood, unhindered by sexualization. You often hear the phrase 'to be a straight-shooter.' That means to speak plain truths and walk easily amid the natural bonds of affection, without the distraction of misplaced sexual urges. In other words, the audience can relax. Their hero is not going to get weird on them.

"The western was a morality tale, so to make immorality the heart of this western is to violate the code of westerns. That's why it's not going to work."

Lee, talking to the Hollywood Reporter, has actually insisted the movie is "not a Western. No gunslingers. I don't want to undermine the sanctified image of the American Western man. It's a love story of real people in the West."

There's also more than a slight tinge of boosterism going on here, in the face of "Brokeback" opening against "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe." Knight links box-office success with moral authority. "You know, that's going to be quite a contrast," he says. "You're going to have a roll-out of a film that's going to be a blockbuster, and it reflects basic Christian values, going up against a limited release of a movie that mocks traditional morality. And I'll betcha I know which one is going to win.

"I think Ang Lee is off his rocker if he thinks he can have the same commercial success with two cowboys instead of a cowboy and a cowgirl, as other movies do."

The comparison, though, is deeply flawed. "Narnia," with its $150 million budget and months-long P.R. campaign behind it, is a bigger movie opening on a much greater scale (more than 3,000 screens). "Brokeback," with a budget of $13 million, is technically considered an independent film, and will open on only five screens, according to BoxOfficeMojo.com.

But still, the Narnia phenomenon may be in part responsible for the general silence on "Brokeback" by siphoning off a lot of effort that might otherwise have gone into a campaign. Sprigg cites Ted Baehr, chairman of the Christian Film and Television Commission and publisher of the Christian magazine Movieguide, who has called for a different approach to influencing pop culture. "The idea is that rather than a negative response of boycotts and picketing and things like that, to encourage a positive response to movies that portray positive values," Sprigg says. "And particularly, I've seen articles encouraging people to go see some of these positive movies on the first weekend because the first weekend box office has a lot of influence on how the film is received overall. I think that may be more of a growing response."

That's certainly going to be the response with "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe," with many churches purchasing group tickets in advance and planning bus trips to theaters.

No matter how it does at the box office, neither the film's producers nor its detractors on the right get to ultimately decide how "Brokeback Mountain" will play out in the culture, whether it will be a defining moment, the way "Ellen" was in 1997, or just the butt of more "South Park" jokes. (Cartman once defined independent movies as "those black-and-white hippie movies. They're always about gay cowboys eating pudding.") But even Knight admits there's a chance the film will be the big event of the weekend.

"Maybe after years of MTV shoving sexual license in kids' faces there's a whole new generation ready for two cowboys going after each other instead of the cowgirl," says Knight, "but I hope not."

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