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Jax And Brittany Are Completely Dodging Criticisms Of Homophobia

If you’re as big of a Vanderpump Rules fan as I am, then you’re well aware that Jax and Brittany’s wedding is just two short weeks away. The VPR cast is in full filming mode for season 8, so we’ll have plenty of time later this year to roll our eyes at the antics of the entire cast, but for now there’s one issue that seems a little more pressing.

In December of last year, Jax and Brittany revealed that they had found a pastor for their wedding, which normally wouldn’t seem like a big deal. I haven’t been to church in approximately a decade, so I’m really not that concerned with who performs a literal stranger’s wedding. But after Jax and Brittany shared their wedding pastor, it was quickly discovered that he’s made no secret of his homophobic and transphobic views. Yikes.

Here’s a post from Pastor Ryan Dotson’s public Facebook page:

Oh, the gay “lifestyle” is contrary to the Word of God. Cool cool cool. Personally, I love forcing my gay agenda down people’s throats, but I guess it’s not for him. But hey, this post is from 2015, so maybe he’s changed his mind since then?

Oh wait, this one is from 2018:

Coooool cool cool cool. So he’s homophobic and transphobic, at least as recently as last July. Great! Once Jax and Brittany announced their decision for Ryan Dotson to officiate their wedding, it didn’t take long for the internet to dig up these and other problematic Facebook posts, and it really wasn’t a great look for Jax and Brittany, who always claim to be allies of the LGBTQ community.

In January, Brittany was asked about Pastor Dotson on Watch What Happens Live, and her response was less than perfect.

“Well I’m not going to say too much but I will say that I am a huge supporter and always will be of the LGBTQ community and no matter what I would never try to make anyone feel uncomfortable. I talked to him myself and he promised me that he was not that way and he was not saying anything about the community whatsoever and I have known this man for years and if it was anything that I felt otherwise, I would never choose somebody like that.”

Okay, so she like, loooooves gay people, and would never want to make them uncomfortable, which is awesome. (But what about the gay people at her wedding who will likely be uncomfortable that this homophobe is officiating?) Luckily, pastor man assured her that he doesn’t hate the gays, and apparently Brit doesn’t have a way to check Facebook posts! It’s pretty insulting for her to act so clueless about this, especially when dozens of people were tweeting her screenshots of the exact posts. Like, just say you don’t care about being a bigot and move on.

But now the controversy over Pastor Dotson has been refueled for a few reasons. First of all, VPR is filming leading up to the wedding, so it’s assumed that the pastor will be featured on the show. Ew. Also, it’s Pride month, and boy Jax and Brittany attended LA Pride last weekend. People are rightfully upset about their hypocritical attitudes toward the LGBTQ community.

Of course, Lisa Vanderpump has always made a huge show of being an ally to the gay community, and she gave a statement to BuzzFeed about the pastor this week:

“Of course everyone knows my feelings for the love and unwavering support for the LGBTQ community. I’ve contacted Jax and Brittany who are extremely disappointed as to the depth and seriousness of these comments by the minister and are very shocked and feel that obviously major alterations will have to be made in their ceremonial plans. They are dealing with this today. This attitude is totally not acceptable to them and changes are forthcoming.”

Soooo…do we believe that Lisa really didn’t know about this until this week? I don’t know if I buy this, but let’s give her the benefit of the doubt on this one. Still, is she really going to like, force Brittany and Jax to ditch their pastor two weeks before the wedding? Considering she couldn’t even stick to her guns after firing Jax from SUR, I’m less than convinced.

Let’s get back to Jax and Brittany. Because they’re such huge allies (lol), they obviously must be horrified by all the things Ryan Dotson has said! Oh wait, no! They’ve both been busy blocking anyone on Twitter who calls them out, and Brittany tweeted last night obviously deflecting attention from the controversy:

Sure, you can’t control the words of others, but you can read those words and then decide not to pay them to be a part of your wedding. You can also choose to not associate yourself with the people who say those words. And if you’re preaching for us to “spread the love not the hate”, then why allow someone who is spreading hate a platform on national television?? I need to take deep, calming breaths before I end up in a rage blackout. This is a painfully weak argument, because there’s really nothing Brittany can say here. Any way you look at it, it’s a bad look for her and Jax to have this guy doing their wedding, but it really seems like they just don’t care. And if that’s the case, I would rather them say that they don’t care then try to gaslight all of us who are calling out their bad behavior into thinking we are simply “spreading hate” or “being negative”.

Since last night, Jax has also been in fine form on Twitter, firing back at all the ~haters~ who have called him and Brittany out. He even said that there are “like 20 amazing gay men” coming to this wedding, so now everything is fine. He followed up that statement with this tweet, which really didn’t help his case:

Besides the fact that he can’t be bothered to spell Billie Lee’s name correctly, assuming that he is referring to Billie, there is so much wrong with this tweet. Jax is basically lumping Billie Lee in the same category as the 20 gay men at the wedding, which shows how ignorant he actually is about all this. If Jax was concerned about being an actual ally, he wouldn’t even drag Billie Lee (who is a heterosexual woman, not a gay man) into this whole mess. Then, Jax also used the reasoning that he wore glitter and a Speedo once during Pride as evidence that he’s not homophobic. K.

I can’t. Jax has now confirmed on Twitter that Ryan Dotson won’t be the officiant at their wedding, but he’s still being an ass in basically everything he posts. Here’s one of the best ones:

Great, so he’s grateful that people made them aware, but also claiming ignorance about the whole thing? In a few of his tweets, Jax is claiming that this was dealt with “a while back,” and maybe he’s telling the truth. But this whole thing kinda smells like “Lisa called us yesterday and she was really mad and so we had to do something.” Basically, I never trust these people to do the right thing, so I’m not inclined to believe that they handled this months ago.

If they really were taking this whole thing so seriously from the beginning, why would Brittany have rolled her eyes and said what she said on Watch What Happens Live? And why would Jax still be saying things like “Apparently people have never made a mistake before” TODAY? To be honest, I’m dreading watching Jax and Brittany wedding unfold next season, because I already know it’s gonna be disgusting. Thank god Sgt. Olivia Betchson writes the recaps so I don’t have to.

Images: Shutterstock; Ryan Dotson (2) / Facebook; Giphy (2); BNCartwright (2), mrjaxtaylor (3) / Twitter

Dylan Hafer
Dylan Hafer has watched over 1000 episodes of Real Housewives because he has his priorities in order. Follow him on Instagram @dylanhafer and Twitter @thedylanhafer for all the memes you could ever want.