The Gays Have Been Banned From Christmas (Movies)

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Rumor has it that actress Candace Cameron Bure banned the song “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” from her home. “Make the yuletide gay?” Not if she has anything to do with it, Judy Garland!

The actress, who spun her time as DJ Tanner on Full House into becoming a perennial cultural nuisance, is under fire this week for comments she made about her vision for the Great American Family TV network, where she is the Chief Creative Officer. This holiday season, that vision is for the gays to get the hell away.

Sorry, snowflakes. It’s time to put the “Christ” back in “Christmas,” and that means you will not be seeing a chiseled jawline in a ribbed maroon sweater sipping cocoa while making eyes at a hometown barista named Chad, who was right there all along.

In a recent interview, she pledged that Great American Family would not feature same-sex couples, bucking a popular trend on Lifetime, Netflix, and even Hallmark. (Gays, forever a trend! How fun!) Twitter, or at least the segment of it that Elon Musk hasn’t yet burned to the ground, went apeshit. Rightfully so! Now she’s saying that response isn’t very of Christian of us.

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This whole thing is ludicrous and entirely expected, and yet it pissed me off anyway. So let’s vent about it.

It all started when you all made those horrendous Hallmark Christmas movies an ironic cultural phenomenon. Cheesy holiday films have become a behemoth industry force and, now, a moral lightning rod. So it’s all your fault.

Bure’s career resurgence as a conservative voice on The View coincided with her reign over Hallmark’s yearly holiday movie schedule. As those movies gained in popularity, her celebrity also rose—an homage to the Jesus she loves so much.

In 2021, the Great American Family channel was launched, then called GAC Family. It was founded by Bill Abbott, a former executive at the Hallmark parent company; he was in charge when, under pressure from conservative groups, the network pulled ads from Zola that featured a same-sex couple back in 2019. The network was founded with a moral imperative: Hallmark simply had gotten too woke and edgy and lost its wholesomeness (yes, you read that correctly). Now, there is an explicit focus on Christianity. (In fairness, that is a departure from a genre that, while aggressively traditional, shied away from themes of faith.)

As my sources tell me, Bure had recently defeated Melissa Joan-Hart in a bloody cage match to determine who is the real queen of bad holiday movies. So Abbott recruited Bure, a Hallmark cash-cow and veritable celebrity missionary, and she now produces religious movies under the banner of “Candace Cameron Bure Presents.” The Wall Street Journal interview that ignited the current firestorm has a chef’s kiss of introduction, encapsulating what kind of film this is:

“Candace Cameron Bure is on a fake-snow-covered set shooting a church scene for her new holiday movie, A Christmas…Present, when it comes time for her character to feel the sudden presence of God. A tech guy stands on a ladder, waggling two plates of glass in front of a light to create a shimmering effect on her upturned face. The crew uses black electrical tape to outline the church’s stained-glass cross so it will pop on-screen. Mrs. Bure works herself into tears for each take, asking the crew to play an emotional Christmas song again and again so she stays in the mood…Mrs. Bure isn’t just selling a made-for-TV moment, but a Christian epiphany for the masses.”

Look, if you want your holiday spirit with a dose of the Holy Spirit, who am I to judge? But it’s Bure’s answer to the question of if the channel would feature same-sex couples that rankles: “I think that Great American Family will keep traditional marriage at the core.” Everyone, even washed-up child stars exploiting God to make money on a cable channel, is entitled to their opinion. Even, I suppose, if that opinion normalizes faith-based bigotry.

Jojo Siwa was pissed. Stephanie Tanner said, “How rude.” I muttered a barely audible, “This bitch…” and continued to silently scroll through Twitter—my personal equivalent of an explosive fury.

Bure responded to the outrage with an exhausting essay blaming the media and the “toxic climate” for attempting to divide the country further. She expressed her disgust at the gall of everyone making this an issue, “even around a subject as comforting and merry as Christmas.” To her credit, she did display her bonafides as an outspoken Christian: She made this all about her own victimization and suffering. After some platitudes expressing love to the very communities she is ostracizing, she wrote, “We need Christmas more than ever.”

You know what? You’re darn tootin’ we do! And you know who loves Christmas? The gays! Themed outfits, non-stop dinner parties, and decorating? Shopping?! Christmas means different things to different people, and for some, it means watching two generically handsome actors dodge their overbearing mothers, fall in love while building a snowman, and then have exactly one (1) kiss on the lips at the end of the film underneath the mistletoe.

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Again, none of this is particularly surprising. Great American Family was undoubtedly created to monetize a conservative political agenda, as always, under the guise of “faith.” Bure’s tenure on The View ended after she defended businesses’ right to turn away same-sex couples. (And, whoo-ee, wait until you Google some of the things her brother, Kirk Cameron, has said.)

I think maybe that’s why this is news: the obviousness of it. We like when people reveal that they really are who we thought they were—and then become confused when people react in kind. It’s so gratifying. It doesn’t happen enough.

The Full House lady wants to abolish the gays for Christmas? Sure! Of course! Now we get to make snide jokes about her on the internet, a holiday miracle if there ever was one.

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