Back to the Frontier: Jason and Joe Hanna Riggs their twin 10-year-old sons – Photo: HBO MAX
Conservative Christians are absolutely outraged over casting a same-sex couple among families featured in the new reality show Back to the Frontier.
Premiering last week on Magnolia Network — co-founded by HGTV stars Chip and Joanna Gaines in partnership with Warner Bros. — the show is a social experiment that sends families to live like 1800s-era pioneers. Among them is Texas couple Jason and Joe Hanna-Riggs and their 10-year-old twin sons.
The Gaineses, executive producers of the show, have been open about their Christian faith. They own Magnolia Homes and rose to fame on the home renovation show Fixer Upper. They faced criticism for not including same-sex couples among their clients whose properties they remodeled as part of the show.
BuzzFeed later reported that the Gaineses’ church pastor in Waco, Texas, opposed same-sex marriage, spoke against LGBTQ rights, and allegedly promoted conversion therapy. The couple also drew backlash for donating $1,000 to Chip Gaines’ sister Shannon Braun, who won a local school board seat campaigning against “anti-racism” training and “critical race theory.”
Although the Gaineses haven’t explicitly supported LGBTQ rights or affirmed LGBTQ identities, social conservatives — who once viewed them as allies in their culture war — now see the inclusion of a same-sex couple in Back to the Frontier as a personal affront to their Christian beliefs.
Evangelist Franklin Graham, son of the late Billy Graham, took to X to criticize Chip and Joanna Gaines for featuring the Hanna-Riggs family on the show.
“I hope this isn’t true, but I read today that Chip and Joanna Gaines are featuring a gay couple in their new series,” Graham wrote. “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, executive vice president of the American Family Association — which opposes expanding LGBTQ rights and has supported laws criminalizing same-sex relations abroad — also expressed disappointment with the Gaineses.
“This is sad and disappointing, because Chip and Joanna Gaines have been very influential in the evangelical community,” Vitagliano said in a statement posted to 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.”
Chip Gaines pushed back against critics attacking him and his wife, writing on X, “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.”
Joel Berry, managing editor of the right-wing satirical site The Babylon Bee, pushed back on Chip Gaines’ post, writing, “You’ll see no hate from me. I’m just sad. I can’t let my kids watch your show now, since I’m trying to protect their eyes and hearts from the lies of the world — lies you’re now participating in.
“We should love the sinner — that doesn’t mean we celebrate and promote the sin and participate in the multibillion dollar industry dedicated to destroying the family,” Berry added.
Gaines replied: “Don’t be sad Joel.. plenty of other stuff out there. I’m sure everyone will be fine. BUT I sincerely appreciate the advice about taking some of the thoughtful, heartfelt, encouraging constructive criticism to heart.. and I certainly will.”
Conservatives view Chip Gaines’ response as unacceptable. Writing for the Daily Signal, Katrina Trinko accused the Gaineses of condoning same-sex marriage by casting a same-sex couple.
“Shouldn’t a Christian couple, even if they disagree, understand that Christians who support traditional marriage are generally motivated by concern for the eternal welfare of gay and lesbian individuals, not hatred?” Trinko wrote.
Trinko called it “an odd time” for the Gaineses to “cave,” noting support for same-sex marriage is at its lowest since 2021 and the Trump administration “successfully refused to celebrate June as Pride Month.”
Though acknowledging the Gaineses haven’t publicly supported same-sex marriage, Trinko criticized another Magnolia Network show, Mind for Design, for featuring openly gay interior designer Brian Patrick Flynn.
She also cited journalist Meg Basham’s reporting of Joanna Gaines’ supportive comments on a social media post by Magnolia Network employee Billy Jack Brawner, who is part of a “throuple” with his wife — who has five children — and a male lover. In the post, Brawner spoke about learning to love himself as a “gay man.” Joanna Gaines replied, “You are SO good. We love you.”
Trinko argued that, given this, “Christians will have to no longer assume that Magnolia Network content is safe for children or necessarily supportive of traditional values.”
I first saw Ang Lee's Brokeback Mountain in 2005, at a three-screen, not-for-profit cinema in suburban Washington state. I went with my then-boyfriend, and for the next two hours and fourteen minutes, I wept silently next to him.
At 16, I came into political consciousness as the second Bush administration fought to maintain a conservative bulwark against progress by endorsing a constitutional amendment defining marriage in strictly heterosexual terms. While I was out, I felt righteously angry that others felt I should hide who I knew myself to be.
Twenty years after the film's release, Brokeback Mountain returned to theaters. The end of June also marked a decade of nationwide marriage equality thanks to Obergefell v. Hodges, in which the Supreme Court granted homosexual couples the "equal dignity" afforded to our heterosexual counterparts. Today, I go to the movies with my husband. And sitting in the cool, dark of the cinema last week, I reflected on the ways Brokeback Mountain helped change the national discourse and still resonates in deep, meaningful ways for people across the country.
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One Million Moms, an offshoot of the anti-LGBTQ American Family Association, regularly campaigns against so-called "indecency" in TV, music, and film -- including violence, profanity, and anything with sexual content. It also froths at the mouth over any positive depictions of LGBTQ people or same-sex couples in media.
"Darling, I loved your performance. I just love your new songs."
Brooke Eden received those words of praise from an older gentleman after a recent performance in Los Angeles. Amidst a crowd of mostly twentysomethings and thirtysomethings, there was this man, whom the 36-year-old Eden describes as "a 70ish-year-old cowboy cowboy get-up from head-to-toe -- the hat, the Wranglers, the nice starched western shirt, and boots."
"Your hat is missing a pin," the cowboy added, proceeding to remove a pin from his hat and fasten it to Eden's hat with the explanation, "I earned this in the gay rodeo from 1988."
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