I wanted to bring an important thought into its own message for the benefit of all participants of this site.
Brokeback Mountain is an intentionally emotional and spiritual film for anyone who has chosen to devote such a significant amount of their life discussing it here. There is both a short story and a movie which generally travel the same path from the 1960's to the 1980's. There are some differences between the short story and the movie, but both received a gold seal of approval from Annie Proulx, who has had nothing but praise for the film adaptation. If she liked the movie, then we should all appreciate that.
I cannot stress enough the theme of BetterMost, which comes straight from Ms. Proulx: "It is my feeling that a story is not finished until it is read, and that the reader finishes it through his or her life experience, prejudices, world view and thoughts." - Annie Proulx
Nothing about her statement regarding life experience, prejudices, world view and thoughts cannot also be applied to our individual interpretation of what we read in the story or saw on the screen. Because of these differences, people will come away with different impressions about what something means. Yet nothing says one impression is totally right... or totally wrong. I think most people are at least on the same chapter, if not the same proverbial page when we discuss the meaning of Brokeback Mountain and the things within it.
I only ask that posters be respectful of the diversity of opinions held by other users. You may not always agree with them, but that doesn't always make the original poster's comments invalid. Just always remember that nobody, not even I, have all the answers, and that it is always very possible that one's own interpretation isn't the only valid one out there.
