JACKSON - Moviegoers wiped back tears Saturday after the premiere of "Brokeback Mountain" in Jackson, saying it was a love story marred by pain and social pressures.

Susan Juvelier, speaking at a forum after the movie at the St. John's Episcopal Church, hosted by the church and Jackson Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays, said the story was a process of discovering love.

"It took all that time and all that space and all that pain for (the character Ennis) to come fully into himself as a loving being," she said.

The film premiered in Jackson on Saturday, and director Ang Lee was in town for a question-and-answer session and party after the movie. The story is about two Wyoming cowboys who fall in love but lead heterosexual lives and keep their love a secret. It is an adaptation of Centennial-based writer Annie Proulx's short story.

Bill Hughes, another at the 20-person after-movie forum, said the movie was so powerful because it depicted two people in love who acted on that love.

"Some may never act on it," he said. "These two people had such a great thing that some people don't ever have in their lives."

Keith Mader said the fact that this movie was premiered in Wyoming, and a church was hosting a discussion, showed progress toward ending social bigotry.

A member of the Episcopal Church, Mader said events like this "are strengthening my faith."

"It's just so silly that bigotry and intolerance have been allowed to get to the point where it is. Pain and suffering over silly ideas of prejudice and bigotry. This is a good step toward stopping it," he said.

Not everyone, however, was a fan of the film.

In an e-mail to the Star-Tribune Friday, Chris Sachall of Houston, Tex., said Wyoming's heritage is being "molested and exploited" by Hollywood, as people have an image of a "typical cowboy."

"No one would ever picture that typical cowboy as being gay," he wrote. "Hollywood realized this and decided to exploit and attempt to change the fact in an effort to advance their liberal movement."

And, he said "liberals would be infuriated if such a slant were put on the culture they have built. Wyoming and every red-blooded American should be just as infuriated that the same liberal mindset is attempting to infiltrate and manipulate the culture that the pioneers of Wyoming have built."

In an October letter to the editor, Dewey Vanderhoff of Cody questioned why the Wyoming state tourism office tried to get "Brokeback Mountain" filmed in Wyoming. (It was shot in Canada because of more favorable production costs.)

"Putting the beautiful landscape of Wyoming on the big screen as a setting for real Western sodomy seems a bit skewed to me," Vanderhoff wrote. "I am no homophobe. But I do question why my state film office would not consider the ramifications of their own desires. We should be relieved that Keep Your Head Productions are filming 700 miles north in a foreign country. Image is everything, and we ain't talking Marlboro Country or 'Shane' here."

But sold-out crowds in Jackson and well-attended forums discussing the film show most are embracing what people are calling a beautiful film.

"The nature of this love was so rugged and hostile and also was so beautifully encompassing and grand and powerful," Tracy Lamb said, "just like the environments they were in."

Reporter Whitney Royster can be reached at (307) 734-0260 or at royster@trib.com.