We’re quickly coming to the end of a holiday season that, similar to years past, has seen a plethora of options for wonderfully cheesy holiday rom-coms. However, this year's movie season has been steeped in conversations surrounding LGBTQ+ inclusivity in Christmas TV movies. Candace Cameron Bure’s comments on keeping “traditional marriage at the core” of offerings from her relatively new home at Great American Family sparked backlash and lots of opinions about faith and tradition. Amidst the brouhaha, Bure opened up about her upbringing, saying she’s no stranger to speaking up about her faith, even in environments that might not be open to hearing it.
Candace Cameron Bure sat down with her brother Kirk Cameron (no stranger to backlashes himself) for his show Takeaways, and she spoke about how growing up in Hollywood taught her early how to stand up for what she believed in. In her words:
We were born and raised in Los Angeles. Yes, Hollywood’s in Los Angeles, but Los Angeles itself isn’t the most God-seeking city that I know. There’s a lot of other cities in the U.S. that I would find much more open to talking about God, church, all those things. So Los Angeles itself wasn’t that easy and I feel like you really had to stand your ground if that’s what you believed in, just with your own neighbors… that God’s the priority in our life.
The Full House alum has certainly never been afraid to speak openly about her faith, and in response to the backlash over her comments about “traditional marriage,” she said it broke her heart that people thought she “intentionally would want to offend and hurt anyone.” From her perspective, she just wants to celebrate God’s greatness through the stories she tells. In conversation with the Growing Pains vet, she admitted that sometimes it’s hard to go “against the grain” when people have different beliefs than you, which has been her experience in L.A. She continued:
Of course, you have the phrases as all parents do. ’Well just ‘cause he’s doing it doesn’t mean that you have to.’ ‘Just because so and so’s gonna go do that, are you going to follow him?’ Be a leader, be a leader. And sometimes being a leader is hard and it means going against the grain. But you have it in you and God’s got you, so be strong in that. And reinforcing those verses that say it in the Bible.
Candace Cameron Bure seemed to go against the grain of what many of her fellow actors believed about including more LGBTQ+ diversity in holiday rom-coms. She was called a “bigot” by both Hilarie Burton and Holly Robinson Peete, who also warned against using “tradition” to justify discrimination. The controversy even led GAF actor Neal Bledsoe to part ways with the network, as he released an emotional statement in which he said he will not give refuge to “those who excuse exclusion and promote division in any way, shape, or form.” While she's never actually saoid anything specifically hateful, her critics don't view her deflections or GAF's current movie slate as being indicative of welcoming one and all.
The star of A Christmas… Present wasn’t without her defenders, however. Danica McKellar — one of several former Hallmark stars who left for GAF — took to social media to “set the record straight” about her own support for representation, but she said she disagreed with her frequent co-star’s take on Candace Cameron Bure’s quote.
Another Great American Family actor, Paul Greene, said the actress has “one of the biggest hearts” he’s ever met, and he hopes everyone can come together to try to “understand what it must be like for the queer community to not have their stories told.”
You can see what holiday offerings are available with our 2022 Christmas movie schedule.
