America’s favorite home renovation couple is in hot water with their supporters this week after viewers discovered their latest TV endeavor features a homosexual couple who bought their children via surrogacy.
Chip and Joanna Gaines’ new reality show Back to the Frontier boasts of a wholesome social experiment where families ditch their modern-day lives to experience life as a 1800s-esque pioneer. One of the main couples featured on the homesteading challenge, however, is a gay couple who bought their sons via purchased eggs and rented wombs.
The decision for two professing Christians to include the “2 Dallas Dads” in their HBO debut is odd, especially given the Gaineses’ history of refusing to capitulate on the biblical definition of marriage. At the same time, it shouldn’t surprise anyone that the HGTV breakouts have fallen prey to what I’ve dubbed The Chosen effect.
Christians spent years defending their own — people like The Chosen cast and creator and the Gaineses — as they battled their way to the top of notoriously hostile spaces. The faithful’s rigorous efforts to elevate and encourage what little religious influence makes it in mainstream pop culture, however, are overshadowed when those beacons bow to the ways of the world.
The Gaineses’ fall from grace is ironic given their quiet support for their then-home church, Antioch, in Waco, Texas, after Buzzfeed targeted it in November 2016 for promoting traditional marriage from the pulpit.
“In times of trouble.. you’ll find the gaines family at church,” Chip Gaines wrote in December 2016.
At the time, the Gaineses held true to their Christian beliefs even though they knew it could be the hill their shiplap dreams died on. Instead, their steadfastness gave their admirers even more reasons to support their goals. Following Buzzfeed’s manufactured scandal, the Gaineses expanded their Magnolia empire from home renovation shows to shopping lines, several Waco-based tourist destinations, and even coffee.
Fast forward nearly a decade, and the not-so-small-town stars that Americans came to know and love have not only seemingly endorsed sexual deviance on social media, but are shamelessly promoting LGBT lifestyles on a show they produced.
Fixer Upper fans saw signs of the Gaineses’ slippage in 2023 when they remained silent on their partnership with the transgender propaganda-promoting retailer Target during a nationwide, profit-punching boycott. To this day, Joanna’s “Hearth and Hand” brand is one of the big box store’s most popular home decor design lines.
The full fall from the hill, however, happened this week when Chip seemed to double down on defending the presence of a homosexual couple who bought their children via surrogacy. Followers’ worries that the Gaineses had forsaken the biblical definition of marriage between a man and a woman were met with whining and manipulation from the Magnolia patriarch.
When his brothers and sisters in Christ cried for biblical accountability, Chip deflected with tired complaints about children of God being too judgmental.
“Talk, ask qustns, 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,” Gaines wrote.
Instead of addressing the substance of concerns from the Jesus-loving audience his entire brand was built on the backs of, Gaines chastised his critics with out-of-context Bible verses.
In a separate post, Gaines used his 2016 declaration about going to church to brag that his family was once again “on our way to church.”
The Gaineses’ flippant dismissal of their deeply disheartened supporters is alarming, to say the least.
Chip’s comments in particular seem to indicate that the Magnolia creators believe loving others means endorsing and even promoting their beliefs and behavior. Actively rejecting Godly principles, including those that discourage Christians from leading little ones to sin, however, is far from the love the Heavenly Father touts. Any attempt to confuse gentle but firm correction from fellow Christians for “hate” is dishonest and a downright snub to the Word of God.
Protecting and promoting marriage between a man and a woman can be risky business in a world dominated by LGBT-influenced institutions. Undermining God’s design and desires for his children, however, is even riskier.
Unfortunately for the Gaineses’ Christian fans, it looks like the dam that used to be the Magnolia creators’ moral stronghold has broken. There’s still time for repentance and redemption, but that will require the Gaineses to turn their eyes from Back to the Frontier and back to the Bible.
Jordan Boyd is a staff writer at The Federalist and producer of The Federalist Radio Hour. Her work has also been featured in The Daily Wire, Fox News, and RealClearPolitics. Jordan graduated from Baylor University where she majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow her on X @jordanboydtx.
