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Chip and Joanna Gaines are under fire from evangelicals.
It is no secret that Chip and Joanna are home renovation TV royalty.
They have also spent years as fan-favorites for conservatives who sought reality television about straight white Christian families (like the Gaineses).
Now that The Magnolia Network has debuted a new show, they’re getting backlash and vitriol from that audience. And Chip is clapping back.
Chip and Joanna have a new show on HBO Max
Earlier this month, The Magnolia Network — a partnership between Chip and Joanna Gaines and Warner Bros Discovery — premiered Back To The Frontier.
The series, which viewers can stream on HBO Max (yes, the streaming platform has its full name back again!)
Back To The Frontier follows three families who are subjecting themselves to the unthinkable: adopting an 1880s frontier lifestyle for the duration of the season.
This means no electricity or running water.
One of the debut season’s three families are Jason and Joe Hanna-Riggs.
This couple is from Texas, and they and their 10-year-old twin sons are diving headfirst into the challenge.
Unfortunately, homophobes were quick to pounce.
Not only did they condemn the couple for simply existing as gay men, but also Chip and Joanna — for allowing them on one of their shows.
All of the worst people are SO angry
One of the homophobes to condemn Chip and Joanna Gaines and the show itself was the notorious Franklin Graham.
“I hope this isn’t true, but I read today that Chip and Joanna Gaines are featuring a gay couple in their new series,” he complained in a tweet. “If It is true, it is very disappointing.”
Cloaking his bigoted message in his religious beliefs, Graham wrote:
“While we are to love people, we should love them enough to tell them the truth of God’s Word. … His design for marriage is between one man and one woman. Promoting something that God defines as sin is in itself sin.”
A series of other posts, including those from other hyper-visible bigots (like from the American Family Association) as well as from everyday trolls, said similar messages.
Conspicuously, many reiterated specific phrasing: writing that the Gaineses were “promoting” gayness.
Some still used the term “lifestyle” even though, obviously, the lifestyle that the series is showcasing is rustic frontier nightmare.
Just a reminder: people simply exist. Existing is not a “promotion.”
You also cannot really “promote” sexuality or gender, just acknowledge that people exist. That’s the actual issue that bigots have.
If you want to hate people for existing, leave Chip and Joanna Gaines out of it
“Talk, ask questions, listen … maybe even learn,” Chip Gaines wrote in a tweet of his own on Sunday, July 13, as his and Joanna’s reply to the bigoted backlash.
“Too much to ask of modern American Christian culture,” he lamented. “Judge 1st, understand later/never.”
Chip commented: “It’s a sad sunday when ‘non believers’ have never been confronted with hate or vitriol until they are introduced to a modern American Christian.”
Right now, so much of what is unfolding in our society is revenge for every bit of social progress that has taken place over the past 5, 15, 50 years.
It is encouraging to see that the Gaineses want no part of that.
Chip and Joanna Gaines Condemn Bigoted Backlash to ‘Back To The Frontier’ Gay … was originally published on The Hollywood Gossip.