Brothers Jacob and Noah harbor a lifelong resentment towards each other. One is a liberal gay man who forsakes his family and moves to New York City; the other is a southern conservative who is left at home holding the proverbial family bag. The story follows their loosely intertwined lives through the wild times of the late 1970s and the restraint of the Reagan years in which one brother ends up becoming a minister and preaching his doctrine while the other believes there are some things people are born with and not meant to change.