Nice to see this jackboot stunt backfiring

BuzzFeed thought it had a real coup in this one:

Chip and Joannes Gaines are the stars of “Fixer Upper” — the HGTV series that revolves around turning crappy, dilapidated houses into beautiful homes in order to revive outdated neighborhoods. They are also devout Christians who often talk about their faith and attend the Antioch Community Church in Waco, Texas.

On Tuesday, BuzzFeed published a story with the headline “Chip And Joanna Gaines’ Church Is Firmly Against Same-Sex Marriage.” The piece attacks the couple because the pastor of their church, Jimmy Seibert, “takes a hard line against same-sex marriage and promotes converting LGBT people into being straight.”

“So are the Gaineses against same-sex marriage?” the BuzzFeed article reads. “And would they ever feature a same-sex couple on the show, as have HGTV’s ‘House Hunters’ and ‘Property Brothers’?”…It’s worth looking at the severe, unmoving position Seibert and Antioch take on same-sex marriage.”

The BuzzFeed hit piece never actually specifies the views of the couple in question. It all hinges on their pastors utterly conventional Christian views on what marriage is.

Some astute readers spoke up:

“This is the dumbest story I have ever heard,” one reader commented. “It’s like a witch hunt for their beliefs, to try an stir the oil from a pot into the flames of the stove. This kind of article is exactly what is wrong with the media.”

“Who cares if they think homosexuality is a sin,” another wrote. “Are they campaigning for hate of these people? No. Stop!”

“This is a tired, forced witch hunt. You are inciting a wave of negative attention on this couple for something that indirectly links to them,” a third reader said. “That’s not journalism, it’s petty bullshit.”

And I was heartened to see this take in the Washington Post.  In a way, I'm heartened all the more, because I disagree with one of the author's major premises. (Her reasoning behind her argument that traditional views on marriage are easy to argue against is pretty flimsy.) But props to this pro-homosexual "marriage" lesbian for speaking out about the rottenness of what BuzzFeed has done:

The entire article is an elaborate exploration of that hypothetical question. And yes, it is very much hypothetical, by the reporter’s own admission: “Emails to Brock Murphy, the public relations director at their company, Magnolia, were not returned. Nor were emails and calls to HGTV’s PR department.”

But that doesn’t stop Aurthur from writing almost 800 more words about the non-story. Her upshot seems to be: Two popular celebrities might oppose same-sex marriage because the pastor of the church they go to opposes same-sex marriage, but I haven’t heard one way or the other. (I can’t imagine pitching that story to an editor and getting a green light, by the way.)

There's no way not to admire her intellectual integrity:

Is the suggestion here that 40 percent of Americans are unemployable because of their religious convictions on marriage? That the companies that employ them deserve to be boycotted until they yield to the other side of the debate — a side, we should note, that is only slightly larger than the one being shouted down?

Or maybe the suggestion is that because they are public figures, they need to be held to a higher standard, one that doesn’t allow them room for moral and religious convictions? But that doesn’t make sense, either.

BuzzFeed is probably at the forefront of discussions surrounding diversity in entertainment. Do their reporters think diversity refers only to skin color? Does ideological diversity count for nothing, especially when it is representative of, again, a sizable chunk of the American public?

Another concern I have with the story is that it validates everything that President-elect Donald Trump’s supporters have been saying about the media: that some journalists — specifically younger ones at popular digital publications — will tell stories in certain deceitful, manipulative ways to take down conservatives. (And really, I can’t for the life of me imagine any other intention of the Gaines story.) 

The Gaines story is a non-story, but it's always worthwhile to report on instances of left-leaners departing from hive-think.