Discrimination needs to ride off into sunset

Turns out, I’m with Larry David.

Cowboys are my weakness, too.

David, the creator of “Seinfeld,” wrote an entirely tongue-in-cheek piece in the New York Times recently listing his reasons for avoiding the film “Brokeback Mountain.” He fretted he might find those gay cowboys downright cute.

I, on the other hand, couldn’t wait to see the film. I know full well the appeal of a handsome cattle man. I met one once when I was a student at the University of Wyoming. He wore a blue jeans jacket, looked great on a horse, and smelled, well, delicious.

That was over 30 years ago, and we’ve been married ever since.

The other night, he accompanied me to the movie. (One thing about the genuine cowboy I know — not much threatens his masculinity.)

While this film covered some terrain we weren’t entirely familiar with, we came away stunned by its sadness — and its beauty.

We had to quibble a bit over its portrayal of Wyoming itself. We were there in the ‘70s. The Riverton post office looked way too small and forlorn for a city larger than Cheney. And don’t get us started on the license plate numbers.

But as we settled into a booth at the Sawtooth Grill afterward, we talked for a long time about the film’s portrayal of gay cowboys. We certainly knew a few. They were college-bound, though, and drawn to a wider, more-accepting world than that which beckoned the wranglers in the movie.

It seemed to us that “Brokeback Mountain” captured universal truths about love. It vividly reminded us of the tragic losses and injustice that stem from our cultural prejudice against homosexuality.

That’s why Washington State Sen. Brad Benson’s comments jumped off the page at me last week. He was responding to the governor’s plan to introduce a new bill banning discrimination.

Benson said to The Spokesman-Review’s Richard Roesler, “I don’t want homosexuals to be discriminated against either, but are they discriminated against?”

Benson, I fear, sorely needs to see “Brokeback Mountain.”

I called Dean Lynch, Spokane’s former city councilman, who is gay. I wanted to hear his perspective.

Lynch proposed an experiment. Anyone who doubts the existence of discrimination against gays in Spokane should find a same-sex friend, and try walking hand-in-hand, or flirt or steal a kiss, in public.

“I think you would find out how uncomfortable it makes other people feel,” he says. “You would get the sneers, the dirty looks, the (nasty) comments…”

He hopes film viewers walk away with the message that “love is universal, that the love that Jack had for Ennis is as powerful as any love that any individual could have for another.”

We also talked of how the lives of long-settled gay couples so closely resemble those of long-married, straight partners.

Gay couples may relish gourmet meals and early bedtimes, or together raise well-tended dogs or children or old-growth roses. They may travel or sing in the church choir, and if they’re a pair of gay cowboys, I’ll bet they play cribbage.

These days we’re in the midst of another historic era of cultural change. We look back on Martin Luther King Jr.’s lifetime this weekend and feel appalled such a level of hatred and discrimination was ever allowed to exist.

Someday, not so far in the future I predict, we’ll look back on American prejudice and violence against gays and feel a similar sense of incredulity and regret. We’ll feel ashamed of ourselves for having lived in a city where gays and lesbians still hide their identity just to keep their jobs.

When that day arrives, we can hope couples like the fictional Jack and Ennis never have to fear discrimination. Washington’s law against it — among many others — will be firmly established.

And when the time comes when these future Jacks and Ennises have been legally married as long as my husband and I have, they’ll share a rich tale of love, with its sweetness and its poignance, and even its occasional chances to drive one another just a bit nuts.

I predict one evening, some future Ennis will come upon his Jack in front of the television, wrapped in a bathrobe and clicking the remote to an obscure cable channel. With affectionate annoyance, he may well say to his still-handsome, graying spouse, the very same words I do:

“Enough of the National Finals Rodeo, my dear! Enough!”