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Credit: Paul Archuleta/Getty Images, David Becker/Getty Images for iHeartRadio

There’s not much ambiguity on where they stand.

There’s a new channel looking to dethrone Hallmark from the top of the Christmas heap, but it’s got some familiar faces attached to it. One of them, of course, is former Hallmark holiday mainstay Candace Cameron Bure, who’s enthusiastically embraced the upstart network, GAC Family.

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The actress opened up recently about her jump between channels and explained to the Wall Street Journal a bit about what she’s hoping for at her new home. Throughout the interview, she made it clear that she wants and will work towards making sure Christianity is a part of the network’s films — including her first holiday film with them debuting later this month.

And as Bure isn’t just one of the new network’s stars, but also, the WSJ explained, serves as the chief creative officer, she’s positioned to do just that.

But that may mean leaving some folks out in the cold for the holidays. When Bure was asked about same-sex couples, she replied that she thinks “that Great American Family will keep traditional marriage at the core.”

And that’s not hard to imagine, seeing as how the man overseeing the new channel, Bill Abbott, left Hallmark as CEO of Crown Media after refusing to air an advertisement for wedding site Zola that featured a same-sex couple. The network itself reversed his decision and aired the commercial, and shortly after, he departed. Abbott, though, told the WSJ the two incidents were unrelated. He’s since taken over as CEO of Great American Media, the parent company of GAC Family.

On the topic of same-sex relationships, Abbott chose his words carefully, telling the WSJ that “It’s certainly the year 2022, so we’re aware of the trends. There’s no whiteboard that says, ‘Yes, this’ or ‘No, we’ll never go here.’”

He may not, however, have chosen those words carefully enough for Hilarie Burton. The actress, who’s done her share of Hallmark movies in the years since her run on One Tree Hill, didn’t mince her words in replying to what he and Bure both had to say.

“Now they’re just openly admitting their bigotry,” she tweeted in response to his comments on showing same-sex relationships. “Being LGBTQ isn’t a ‘trend.’ That guy and his network are disgusting. You too, Candy. There is nothing untraditional about same-sex couples.”

And when Burton spotted an article from our sister site, TV Line, about Bure’s explanation to the WSJ as to why she left Hallmark, she doubled down on her criticism of the actress, calling her a “bigot” directly.

“I don’t remember Jesus liking hypocrites like Candy,” Burton tweeted. “But sure. Make your money, honey. You ride that prejudice wave all the way to the bank.”

Bure, though, seems happy enough where she is, with her own tweet of the WSJ article pinned to her page, pulling out one quote from it in particular. “I want to be able to tell that story in a beautiful way,” she said, “but also that is not off-putting to the unbeliever or someone who shares a different faith.” Perhaps in time she will come to understand that a truly beautiful way to celebrate the season would be not to exclude an entire segment of the population and marginalize their relationships as “nontraditional” and, therefore, “less than.”

Get ready for the holiday movie extravaganza with our photo gallery of Hallmark’s top 10 swoonworthy hotties.