Miller attended the Utah Jazz-Miami Heat game Saturday night but his spokeswoman, Linda Luchetti, vice president of communications for Larry H. Miller Sports and Entertainment, said he would have no comment.

LDS Church spokesman Dale Bills declined to comment on either the movie or Miller's decision to pull it.

"That's what's so perplexing about this story," Feighery said. "It seems to have to do with assumptions and perceptions of faith."

He added that this isn't the first time Utah has been the butt of outside jokes. He remembered the controversy when the LDS Church bought a block of Main Street to build a plaza.

"Wire stories framed it as 'here's this powerful, secret entity that's trying to take over public property'," he said.

Noting that most reporters are secular, Feighery said that Christians and conservatives are often portrayed much differently than secular Jews and Muslims.

"Would people really report the same way, using same framing and word choices, if this were in Florida or Michigan?" he said. "That's the thing that troubles me."

However, Valarie Larabee, executive director of the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender Community Center of Utah, sees Miller's move as "very much symptomatic and an example of a broader social concern."

She pointed to a climate where same-sex marriage and domestic unions are barred by a state constitutional amendment. And lawmakers this year will likely consider legislation that would ban gay-straight clubs in schools.

"The laws being passed here are being passed in a legislature that is clearly against a population of people who are taxpaying citizens, who are parents and friends and hardworking people," said Larabee, who sent out a call to action urging a boycott of Miller's many businesses.

Larabee says she has experienced support and honoring from Mormons, along with hateful comments made by some among the church.

"It would be nice for Utah to be known as a place that honors people for who they are and to keep the religious dialectic out of public policy," she said.

Millie Watts of Provo says she saw the movie, and "I thought it was wonderful." At the same time she can understand why it was pulled at the last minute from Miller's theater.

The LDS Church makes it clear that sex outside of marriage isn't approved; however, gay people can't marry, she said. She noted there are countless movies about heterosexuals who are not faithful.

"Sometimes you have to have gay children, or someone you know who's really close to you, before you take the time to really learn about homosexuality," Watts said. "If I had been the owner of a theater before I knew I had gay kids . . . I probably would have pulled the film."

However, she wonders if Miller would have made the same decision had he seen the movie.