Chip Gaines responds to criticism about ‘Back to the Frontier’ casting
Chip and Joanna Gaines are responding to backlash over the latest show in their media empire. Chip Gaines took to social media on July 13 to defend their new Magnolia Network reality series
By Lisa Respers France, CNN
(CNN) — Chip and Joanna Gaines are responding to backlash over the latest show in their media empire.
Chip Gaines took to social media on Sunday to defend their new Magnolia Network reality series, “Back to the Frontier.” The show drew criticism from some Christian conservatives for featuring a gay couple, Jason Hanna and Joe Riggs.
“Talk, ask [questions], listen.. maybe even learn. Too much to ask of modern American Christian culture. Judge 1st, understand later/never,” Gaines wrote on his X account. “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 [broken heart emoji].”
The post came in response to comments from Franklin Graham, the son of the legendary evangelical pastor Billy Graham.
“It is very disappointing,” Graham wrote on X of the casting. “While we are to love people, we should love them enough to tell them the truth of God’s Word. 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.”
Gaines and his wife have built off the success of their HGTV show “Fixer Upper” to build several other businesses, such as a line of home goods. Their partnership with Warner Bros. Discovery, which is owned by CNN’s parent company, resulted in the launch of the Magnolia Network in 2022.
The new show features three families attempting to live like homesteading pioneers in the 1880s without modern day conveniences, including electricity.
Hanna told Queerty he and Riggs, who are parents of 10-year-old twins, welcomed the “amazing opportunity to normalize same-sex couples and same-sex families.”
“I’m super honored that when they were choosing three modern-day families, they did choose a same-sex couple as a modern-day family, because we are,” said Hanna, who also shared that when he first saw the flyer advertising the forthcoming series on social media it featured a gay couple. “We are your neighbors and your coworkers.”
“Back to the Frontier” airs Thursdays at 8 p.m. ET on Magnolia Network and streams on HBO Max.
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