Beneath Brokeback

At movieministry.com, a review of Brokeback Mountain is subtitled "Building Empathy for Sin", and one sentence says, "In order to make Jack and Ennis truly tragic, the men can carry no blame for the relationship".

Christians have a tendency to get wrapped up in sexual sin. Obviously this movie has carried plenty of it to grab our attention. Homosexuality, promiscuity, adultery. In the midst of our focus on two men loving each other, the reviewers missed an important, moral trait that Ennis possessed; he was a good father. As a twice-divorced mother who saw two dads walk away from their children's lives, I saw the gentleness and love that Ennis gave his girls. I took note after the divorce when Ennis talked to his daughters about when he'd see them again. When Jack heard about his lover's separation and showed up unannounced at his doorstep, I remember the reason Ennis gave him for not being able to spend time with him. He had his girls that weekend, he told Jack, and he only got them once a month, and he'd missed the month before. The lover that he saw infrequently and loved so passionately didn't come before his kids.

Ennis wouldn't quit his job and leave his girls to go live with Jack. But at the end of the movie he tells his daughter that he'll quit his job to be at her wedding. He is left with relics of those he loves - his shirt and Jack's together on a hanger, the sweater his daughter forgot when she left. Material reminders of what mattered most in the fabric of Ennis' life; those he loved. In the end he gave his daughter what he couldn't give Jack - his time and his presence.

I don't have to look very far to find grown men and women who have been scarred by the abandonment of their fathers (or mothers), as my children have been. If we only see the sexual elements in Brokeback and not the fathering that Ennis gave his children, what does that say? What matters most to us?