Chip and Joanna Gaines are members of Antioch Community Church, and in November 2016, BuzzFeed wrote an exposé on the church and its pastor, Jimmy Seibert, claiming that he's anti-gay and believes in conversion approaches for LGBTQ+ individuals. On the church's website, under the heading labeled "Our Beliefs," it says: "We believe that marriage is the uniting of one man and one woman in covenant commitment for a lifetime," with subsequent scripture references. "A wife is to submit herself graciously to the servant leadership of her husband," they later added.

As BuzzFeed reported, after the Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage Seibert told his congregation, "Truth No. 1: Homosexuality is a sin. The lie: Homosexuality is not a sin." He also claimed that "the statistics say that 90% of people who are in a full-blown homosexual lifestyle were abused in some way. Physically, sexually, mentally."

With this as the church's manifesto, things got awkward for Chip and Joanna after a 2016 interview with Seibert in front of the congregation, where he called them "our dear friends." He went on to explain how deeply knit they are within Antioch Community Church. "They have been with us for years, from the beginning of this church, and we have been praying for them, celebrating with them all that God's doing in their lives," Seibert said. To be fair, as BuzzFeed noted, Chip and Joanna have not explicitly stated if they agree with Seibert's stance.

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