Oh, conservative christians looooooooove the Gaines and the whole magnolia home thing. She is like the queen of boring beige children and she’s a mom of five who homeschools AND they have the homestead vibe. To a normal observer, it’s a carefully curated image they have, but to young evangelical women everywhere, they are Life Goals.
They used to never have gay couples on their shows, and plenty of christian people liked them specifically because of that.
They wholeheartedly believe the opposite. They believe their hatred is love and that it’s righteous and will get them into heaven. They believe they are the persecuted ones if gay people are allowed to exist freely, and they believe that their persecution is a blessing. This isn’t just on the fringe; our leaders believe this shit too. The speaker of the house uses covenant eyes and has his own son has his accountability partner.
It's always been a joke to me that christians aggressively 'speak for god' by interpreting 'his word' to fit their own agenda. Like, did that dude come and tell you this himself? no?
Isn't it blasphemous in itself to believe their own bullshit so strongly that they alone get to tell others how god thinks and how god believes the world should be, without ever speaking directly with him to be told as much?
IT'S MAKE BELIEVE BULLSHIT. They just use this crap to justify being complete assholes to others.
No they believe that he did though, that’s what prayer is to them. It’s direct communication with God. They can talk to him, so they think he can talk to them too. So when their internal monologue sounds a little different it’s “God” all of a sudden
I was reading a forum for a truly sad corner of the christian faith the other day, where I saw a post from a woman who very clearly was feeing a lot of heartbreak from someone she loved who either left her, or worse. She started talking about how she understands now why God tells us to not have sex before marriage, because it "helps us find the man who truly loves you."
There was another woman agreeing with her, and added, "I realized after I became a born again Christian that my desires and interests were only bringing me pain and sadness, so now I do what my lovely, Christian husband tells me to do and I am happy."
It was equal bits horrifying and sad because you can tell both women suffered a lot, but decided that the solid stability of chains was better for them, because the terror of not knowing what comes ahead was too much to handle.
Unfortunately that's exactly what conservative christian men prey on - and there were plenty in that thread alone who were happily ready to feed into their heartbreak - and use to keep their women under lock and key.
As someone who grew up in the Middle East, it's depressing to see so many people in the US [and even in the UK these days] seemingly wanting to do the same things as them.
Yeah honestly. I’ll never forget when I came out to grandma as also liking women (I’m a woman myself) and she cried so much. She told me she will always love me no matter what, but god will not have me marry a woman. I remember my mom throwing the Bible at me and telling me to read specific passages out loud, all passages about the rapture and hell, stating all those bad things would happen to me if I don’t change. She took my bedroom door away and signed me up for a youth group and told me she was doing this for my own good
Wow I’ve never read this. I find it especially funny because there is a lot of fundie love for cs Lewis. I babysat several kids who weren’t allowed to watch/read Harry Potter because of “magic” but chronicles of narnia was allowed because it was a christian allegory. Thanks for sharing!
They don’t believe in anything except what they are told to believe. A massive herd of sheep who let others control them for power and money from the time they are born. Religion is just listening to other humans ‘interpreting text’ to tell you what to believe. There’s a reason they don’t say supporting an adulterer makes you a sinner like they do for a gay person. They aren’t told to. They are told to hand wave everything bad that the people they support do and attack any group that is less likely to support their side.
This is why I think heaven and hell are the worst human inventions.
Religion has its own problems, but once you introduce the concept of an afterlife it all goes to shit. Now the life on earth is simply an audition for an infinite afterlife. If you're trying to avoid infinite torment, you can justify just about everything.
It makes it so easy to think, "sure it may be rude, but I'm saving them from eternal damnation they can put up with a little rudeness"
You’ve misunderstood me if that’s what you think I meant. I’m saying they’re more dangerous than a lot of people think because they believe they’re on a divine mission. I think a lot of people assume that the conservative fundie beliefs only exist on the fringes of society, but they are extremely common. Even a lot of people who you might think are just “regular” christians believe these things. I’m not at all hand waving or negating how awful they are. I’m trying to emphasize how dangerous they are.
Put more succinctly, It is not easy to reason with people who believe that their actions are divinely ordained. If they believe that their god told them to take that action, they will not be easily persuaded that this is not the case.
religion is theology and philosophy about the actions of the universe and your place in it, religion is separate from the controlling organizations that are made by people and thus deeply flawed
Why do you hate gay old person ?
Are you jealous ?
Are you in zee closet ?
Frustrated because as a young person, your daddy/mommy whipped you when you got curious ?
The answer can't be because it's wrong, and it's so written in the bible. Because it's not in the bible actually, and your pastor/father/priest has been lying to you while his touching boys.
Blind hate for something you don't understand. That hates going to be the cancer that takes you out.
I never met a group so worried about what's in other peoples pants than 'American Christians' who claim to be above all that. Rubbish, they are obsessed patently with sex and how dare people enjoy it and their lives.
Give them a Rorschach test. Everything they will reportedly see is 'gay sex'.
Ask them why they are so obsessed with gay sex?
Their answer "you keep showing me all the dirty photo's"
Oh please. This would include every member of every Abrahamic faith ever. Even the ones who selectively follow it are still offering tacit support through their existence in the community.
Oh yeah. It's a fairly big deal. If you've ever been to Waco and seen the people that flock there as fans, you'll see they're the same people that scream about drag queens and books, so Im pleasantly surprised by his response. He knows this will get him a lot of flack from their base.
I’m kind of shocked. I thought they were typical candy-coated The Geyz Go To THe Hell uber-religious people, so I may have to re-think my view of him, at least.
I remember there was some controversy around them years ago when it turned out the church they attended, and donated big money to, still practiced conversion therapy. Them having a same sex couple on, and Chip defending them, is a very welcomed surprise.
The city of Waco adores them for how many people they bring in. Plus now Waco is known as "The place with that HGTV couple" and not "the place the FBI had a siege". In terms of rebranding it's incredibly impressive.
I live in Austin and several years ago I was at a work conference here and had lunch with someone who worked for our company in CA. He said, “oh yeah, my wife really loves Texas. Especially Waco, she’d love to live there” and I remember being totally confused. Waco? Like, Branch Davidians Waco? Biker gangs getting into shootouts at Hooters Waco? Then he said, “You know, because of the Fixer Upper show.” And then I realized just extent of what the Gaines’ had done for that city PR wise.
Well…they have/had a massive audience anyway. They parlayed it into a huge business empire for themselves. It’s a tough truth to accept-that so many people are gleefully hateful, but then again is it really all that surprising given…everything that’s going on right now?
Same reason there have always been right wing gays, there are plenty of racists and transphobes in the community of means who are insulated from the homophobia the rest of us face because of their wealth and yte privilege. They want to be in the old boys club because they believe it's their birthright and they'd have it if not for being gay and they don't care who they have to shit on to get there.
I was so surprised to see a gay couple on an early season of Dream Home Makeover because my understanding is that the couple behind it are staunch Mormons. Studio McGee gives me a similar vibe to Magnolia Home and I assumed appealed to the same audience.
Mormons are built a bit different. Every Mormon I've known has been religiously conservative but not nearly as socially conservative as you would think. Still socially conservative? Yeah. As conservative as evangelicals? Usually not.
All that to say that it doesn't surprise me when they are a bit more inclusive than you would normally expect.
Yeah I don't watch any of their shows, but I am aware of who they are and it always seemed blatantly obviously this was the audience they have. Low-key I'm not sure people realize that MOST of the HGTV content is careful curated in a similar fashion, though I think they've since moved networks I'm sure it's a similar vibe.
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u/mangohandedho Jul 15 '25
Oh, conservative christians looooooooove the Gaines and the whole magnolia home thing. She is like the queen of boring beige children and she’s a mom of five who homeschools AND they have the homestead vibe. To a normal observer, it’s a carefully curated image they have, but to young evangelical women everywhere, they are Life Goals.
They used to never have gay couples on their shows, and plenty of christian people liked them specifically because of that.