While many Americans are focused on President Donald Trump’s desperate efforts to divert attention from evidence of his ties to Jeffrey Epstein, and on the shocking cruelty of ICE abduction and detention operations, religious-right activists have spent more than a week ranting about a different “outrage”: the fact that a television reality show treats a same-sex couple and their kids as a family.
Right Wing Watch reported last week on the explosion of anger directed at Chip and Joanna Gaines, who built a large following with “Fixer Upper,” a reality show about home renovation that featured their family and their Christian faith. The Gaines have produced a new show, “Back to the Frontier,” which follows the travails of three families as they give up modern conveniences to live for a month as if they were 19th century homesteaders. It is now streaming on HBO Max.
Far-right pastors and leaders of religious-right groups have piled on, railing against the show’s simple recognition that these two dads and their 10-year-old twins are a family like millions of other American families. As Right Wing Watch reported, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s pastor called the show “evil,” “wicked,” “demonic,” and “a satanic Trojan Horse.”
Chip Gaines further angered anti-LGBTQ zealots when he challenged their intolerance, tweeting,
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💔— Chip Gaines (@chipgaines) July 13, 2025
New Apostolic Reformation figure Mario Murillo joined the fray on Monday, saying that Satan is using the couple as a Trojan Horse. He called the show “a direct assault on Christian values” and claiming, “This is the next level of the LGBTQ agenda to remove Bible-based faith in America.”
Generations, an anti-LGBTQ publisher of homeschooling curricula and promoter of a daily radio show it says is heard on 140 stations, on Monday cited an unnamed source claiming that the Gaineses have “long affirmed perversion.” The show, also distributed as an email newsletter, also quoted right-wing activists Matt Walsh and Robby Starbuck, the latter claiming, “Promoting this show means cash is greater than Christianity.”
On Monday, the website ChurchLeaders reported on the continuing “flood” of conservative Christians attacking the Gaineses. Among those joining the attack: MAGA musician and activist Sean Feucht called the show “filth”; Christian nationalist William Wolfe, who called the show a “sellout” and “tragic surrender”; anti-LGBTQ activist John Amanchukwu, a fellow at the MAGA Center for Renewing America who travels the country to rant at school board members; former Trump attorney and confessed felon Jenna Ellis, who tweeted, “This homosexual group + purchased children are not a family”; Megan Basham, who pointed a finger at the Gaines’ church and pastor; and, of course, Trump apologist Eric Metaxas.
Religious-right podcaster Allie Beth Stuckey—who by the way is a big fan of Trump’s anti-immigrant henchman Stephen Miller and denounces “toxic empathy”—devoted a show to slamming the Gaineses for promoting what she called “forced motherlessness” and “functional transgenderism.” She called Chip Gaines’ response to his critics’ judgementalism “left-wing secular slop.”
Many of these same leaders and groups have been happy to ignore or explain away the “anointed” Trump’s amorality and corruption, and, as the ChurchLeaders story pointed out, have remained silent about the Trump family’s support for marriage equality.
ChurchLeaders noted that some Gaines critics are comparing the couple unfavorably to the recently deceased influential right-wing pastor John MacArthur, who is being showered with posthumous praise as a champion of conservative values despite his documented record of “protecting abusers while punishing their victims.”
Speaking of abusive pastors, the disgraced and disgraceful Mark Driscoll posted a video attacking Chip Gaines for what he claimed is “a betrayal of Christ.” He, too, went after Gaines for defending himself, saying, “You’re the one who farted in your own elevator, so you’ve gotta smell it.”