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| By casting a same-sex couple in their docuseries Back to the Frontier, HGTV personalities Chip and Joanna Gaines enrage conservative evangelicals and puts a much-needed spotlight on how the concept of religious freedom is distorted |
From Men's Journal:
Chip and Joanna Gaines, the popular HGTV personalities who created their own TV network and have a massive following from Evangelical Christians, are facing criticism over a casting decision for their new HBO Max docuseries, Back to the Frontier.
The new series, from the couple's Magnolia Network, features three couples living as 1800s homesteaders. Among the couples includes Jason and Joe Hanna-Riggs, a same-sex couple who have two sons.
The decision to cast the Hanna-Riggs family cast drew immediate criticism from Chip and Joanna's own fan base. Preacher Franklin Graham notably went on X and voiced his dismay.
"I hope this isn’t true, but I read today that Chip and Joanna Gaines are featuring a gay couple in their new series. If It is true, it is very disappointing. While we are to love people, we should love them enough to tell them the truth of God’s Word," he tweeted. "His Word is absolute truth. God loves us, and His design for marriage is between one man and one woman. Promoting something that God defines as sin is in itself sin."
Ed Vitagliano, vice president of the American Family Association, called the casting disappointing.
“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," the organization tweeted.
After hearing the criticism, Chip swung back.
"Talk, ask [questions], listen.. maybe even learn. Too much to ask of modern American Christian culture. Judge 1st, understand later/never," he tweeted. "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."
This controversy is an opportunity to look at the concept of religious freedom as it is used by conservative evangelicals.
Graham and other conservative evangelicals (that includes those on the Supreme Court) have weaponized the term as an excuse to not treat LGBTQ people fairly and in accordance with laws. To do so would jeopardize their "personally held religious beliefs," they tell us.
But religious freedom goes both ways. Just as people have the religious freedom to condemn and castigate LGBTQ people, others have the religious freedom to affirm LGBTQ people or - in the case of the Gaines - welcome LGBTQ people in.
Graham knows this. And other conservative evangelicals (including those on the Supreme Court) know this. But to them, religious freedom is not about freedom to worship. It's not about respecting people's right to worship as they wish.
It's a ploy for them to dictate policy in accordance with their fantasy that America is a Christian nation controlled and corralled by their definition of Scriptures. It's the method in which they try to take power - power which they delude themselves comes anointed by God when in reality, it comes from their own craven and greedy desires.
Their lapse of knowledge about religious freedom is not accidental. It's a cynical convenience and a hallmark of their barely hidden hypocrisy. Just as easily as Franklin Graham can condemn LGBTQ people as sinners while simultaneously supporting the even more sinful and incredibly corrupt Trump Administration (which he does almost constantly), other conservative evangelicals can whine that their freedom to worship is being taken away while attempting silence others who they feel aren't obeying God according to their standards.
This controversy, if u want to call it that, merely lays it all bare.
