One of the reasons why I love HGTV’s Home Town is because Ben and Erin Napier really showcase what it’s like to be accepting/tolerant/woke in a small Southern town. In the first few seasons of Home Town, they were already renovating homes for gay couples and mixed-race couples, and it was clear that the Napiers have a wide variety of friends and associates of all races, sexualities and faiths. Well, Chip and Joanna Gaines have always been much different. They live and work in Texas and they’ve built their empire almost entirely in Waco. I don’t think they’ve ever worked with a gay couple or featured the LGBTQ community in any way on any of their shows. Well, now that Chip and Joanna operate the Magnolia Network, they’re finally producing a show which features ONE gay couple. And the Evangelicals are losing their minds.
Reality TV stars Chip and Joanna Gaines have hit back at religious conservatives who accused them of “unbiblical” behavior after they cast a same-sex couple in a new series about living in the past.
Back to the Frontier premiered last week on the Gaineses’ Magnolia Network, the cable network they co-founded with Warner Bros. Discovery. The reality show follows three families who must live like it is the 1880s, with no modern conveniences such as running water or electricity. One of the couples is Jason and Joe Hanna-Riggs, from Texas, and their 10-year-old twin sons.
Evangelist Franklin Graham, son of the late Billy Graham, took to his X account to call the same-sex casting “disappointing”. “God loves us, and His design for marriage is between one man and one woman,” Graham said. “Promoting something that God defines as sin is in itself sin.”
Ed Vitagliano of the American Family Association said the Magnolia Network was “expected to uphold” biblical values because the Gaines had been open about their faith in the past. “This is sad and disappointing, because Chip and Joanna Gaines have been very influential in the evangelical community,” Vitagliano posted on X. “We aren’t sure why the Gaines have reversed course, but we are sure of this: Back to the Frontier promotes an unbiblical view of human sexuality, marriage, and family – a view no Christian should embrace.”
The Gaineses, who found fame on the renovation show Fixer Upper, do not appear in Back to the Frontier themselves but were heavily involved in production. In a tweet on Sunday, Chip Gaines hit back at the criticism: “Talk, ask questions, listen… maybe even learn. Too much to ask of modern American Christian culture. Judge 1st, understand later/never. 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.”
Honestly, I’m surprised that Chip and Joanna would even cast a married gay couple on one of their shows, much less two fathers raising children. This is the first time Chip and Joanna have done anything like this, correct? While the Gaineses have been open about their Evangelical beliefs and faith, they’ve never led with it on their shows and they’ve never “promised” to make all-Evangelical programming or what have you. Also: of all of the programming Chip and Joanna are involved in, they cast a gay couple in this “frontier”-themed show? Like… can we just have regular old LGBTQ representation on a reno show? Damn. I wish Joanna understood that the LGBTQ community loves shiplap, and they were gagged when she did that Tuscan/Italian-themed kitchen. The tile work!!
Photos courtesy of Cover Images.
