To some, it’s a movie about a fictional tragic love story. To most of us, it’s a documentary of our lives. The real tragedy of Brokeback Mountain is that, despite our back-breaking efforts to seek equality, not much has changed since 1963, the year the saga begins. Ennis and Jack had no choice then (and men in rural areas don’t have a choice today, either) but to live in complete secrecy or face violent deaths (e.g., Matthew Shepard).

Men who loved each other could not marry in 1963. In 2006, they still cannot marry (sans Massachusetts). In many states, gay men cannot adopt children, cannot serve as foster parents, and cannot access medical services in an effort to produce children. Men like Ennis who agree to divorce their spouses rather than live a lie often lose custody and visitation of their kids.

And even more despicable is that states and private entities openly discriminate against the children of gays and lesbians. Because federal law and most states’ laws make it perfectly legal to discriminate against gays and lesbians, their children suffer. Some schools will not enroll the children of gay men. Some groups won’t allow the kids to join or participate; and if they do allow the child to join, it’s on condition that the gay parent not participate.

While domestic partnerships provide a few of the 1,000-plus rights provided to married couples, most states don’t mandate them, and in their efforts to prevent any rights for gay couples, have repealed domestic partner laws.

The United States denies gay couples not just marital rights but also other basic human rights. While it is true that the Supreme Court finally held in Lawrence v. Texas that states may no longer imprison gay men for private consensual conduct, Congress and most states allow persecution of gays (including murder) by private individuals. How?

For example, Brokeback Mountain depicts two hate crimes, specifically murders motivated by the victims’ sexual orientation (one in Wyoming and the other in Texas). Neither state protects gays from hate crimes.

Nor is there a federal law protecting gays and lesbians from hate crimes. The advantage of a federal law is that it gives federal authorities the power to investigate “suspicious” deaths of gay men that take place in rural areas. Without federal oversight, just as the movie depicts, in many locales deaths go uninvestigated because they are “accidents.”

And when police do investigate the murder of a gay man, police, prosecutors and jurors often accept the perpetrator’s “homosexual panic defense,” i.e., “The faggot made a pass at me and I had to kill him.”

It’s a shame that in 2006 “homophobia is still rampant within law enforcement,” as Amnesty International reported this year. Even a progressive police agency – the San Francisco Police Department – has 20-plus officers under the gun for taking part in derogatory videos depicting gays and others in negative ways. After all, many recruits in police agencies come from the U.S. military, where openly gay men and lesbians cannot serve and where hatred of gay men is not just tolerated but is part of the culture.

So if most police recruits come from a climate where anti-gay bias is the accepted social norm, don’t be surprised to see it surface in police agencies. It does, and while beatings are the exception, the more subtle form of bias is through what is known as “unequal enforcement of laws.”

For example, in 1963, Brokeback Mountain depicts two men having sex outside in the mountains – miles away from anyone. But if the men had been spotted by an SDPD officer, they would have been arrested for lewd conduct (public sex) and indecent exposure. And there are still city attorneys who would not only bring charges against the men, but would also demand that they register for life as “sex offenders.” Oh, and if it was a straight couple frolicking in the woods, the cop would still be watching it.

The movie also depicts anti-gay job bias, lawful in 1963 and still lawful throughout the United States today, sans a handful of states. There is no federal law specifically protecting gays and lesbians from job bias. It was perfectly legal to fire Jack Twist in 1963 for being gay – and it’s still lawful in 2006. In fact, what little protection there is for gay men would not apply to Ennis or Jack. Why? Because federal rulings only allow gender bias laws to apply to the most “effeminate” men and “masculine” women. Congress will not extend the law to cover gays and lesbians.

Yes, the real tragedy of Brokeback Mountain is that not much has changed in the last 50 years for people whose genetic makeup causes them to love and desire members of the same gender. I hope that Jack Twist’s story may inspire others to “break backs” climbing what has been a Brokeback Mountain in the struggle for equal rights.