Posted: 1/22/2006 9:00:53 AM EDT
HOWDY, LIFE PARDNER
By HEATHER GILMORE
PHOTO 'MOUNTAIN' MEN: Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal star in "Brokeback Mountain." NY Post, January 22, 2006 -- Gay cowboys are coming out of the corral in droves since the release of the controversial film "Brokeback
Mountain," People magazine reports this week.
"Sure, it's hard being in a place with so few people who are gay," said Wyoming cowboy Ben Clark, 42. "It used to anger and depress me. Now I just understand it as a fact of life."
The magazine, on stands tomorrow, says the Golden Globe-winning movie has prompted many to declare their sexual orientation - and spawned a forum for gays and lesbians to be held in Jackson Hole, Wyo., on Dec. 9.
"People who are interested in the movie will see it; people who aren't, won't," said Guy Padget, 28, a gay councilman in Casper,Wyo.
Oklahoma rancher Sam Beaumont said he kept his 25-year relationship with Earl Meadow, a comptroller for a manufacturing firm, a relative secret from others near their ranch in Bristow.
"We loved each other," Beaumont said of Meadow, who died of cancer in 2000. "We had a better relationship than most straight couples."
Beaumont told the magazine that there are different types of gays and lesbians throughout the countryside.
"You'll have ranchers who are quiet about it," he said.
"Then you've got the ones that claim they're straight but have sex with men. And when they come home at night and their wives ask if they've been with a woman, well, they don't have to lie."
Jackson Hole plumber Jade Beus, 31, had his heart broken by a man in Soda Springs, Idaho, who, like Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal in the movie, denied his sexuality and married a woman.
"It was painful, the main reason I moved to Jackson Hole," Beus said. "I couldn't stand to see them together.
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