The Mormons Versus the 'Armies of Satan': Competing Frames of Morality in theBrokeback MountainControversy in Utah Newspapers

Analyzing Utah op-ed columns and letters to the editor, this essay considers the news media's role in framing public debate regarding the 2006 cancellation of the film Brokeback Mountain because of its themes of gay love and homophobia. Our study interrogates journalists' and citizen letter-writers' discourse on either side of the issue as it played out in the press. The discourse breaks down into two diametrically opposed frames—Defending Zion versus Disrupting Zion—but each argues for the same thing: to protect different perspectives of morality. The values underlying each framing strategy reveal tensions in an LDS Church-dominated culture with a growing “Gentile” population.