KUDOS TO WALMART

MAJOR CHAIN STORE REFUSES TO TAKE MOVIE OFF THE SHELVES

By Toney Atkins

Hats off to Walmart for refusing to bow to pressure from a conservative Christian group to remove the DVD "Brokeback Mountain" from its shelves.

The group claimed something to the effect that the movie promotes homosexuality, so obviously none of the members actually saw the film.

How Christian is it to want this one particular DVD to be unavailable to the public when the Academy Award-winning "Crash" is full of violence, profanity, and explicit sexual situations? And that's not the only title that has more than a share of sexuality, bad language, criminal actions and violence -- and the good guys don't always win. Why aren't the Christian groups clamoring to get all of those -- and there are many -- out of the stores?

Perhaps they want only Disney titles available for the public -- but then again: Listen closely and adults and the modern generation of savvy kids will catch some suggestive dialogue in some of the newer animated as well as live-action films.

"Brokeback Mountain" has fewer sex scenes than the average PG-13 rated movie, and the most sizzling one has to do with one of the cowboys and a "lady" who comes on to him in a bar. The men aren't really gay in the story. They're two men who have a sexual encounter (not even graphically shown) and develop a deep, loving friendship. Yes, two men can love one another -- it's a fact of life -- and these men love their wives and children as well. I saw nothing in the movie that would promote homosexuality as a lifestyle of choice, but neither does it denounce it. It's an unusual and dramatic love story, and the only major violence in the entire movie is a brief glimpse of a hate crime, which anyone, especially Christians, should denounce.

I would hope that groups proclaiming the love and forgiveness of Jesus Christ and God the Father would at least see and tell their congregations the truth about both films and books before denouncing them. Either that or make us a "1984" society in which everything of which the church doesn't approve is banned or burned, no matter what the content. Anyone can find something offensive in anything, and I'm offended by those who are so quick to condemn without knowing what they're talking about.

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