A Texas pastor with a history of inflammatory remarks has turned his attention to the galaxy far, far away. Joel Webbon, a self-described Christian nationalist, used his podcast to label Star Wars as “one of the gayest franchises” and “so feminized,” triggering a wave of backlash from fans who say he completely misunderstands the movies.
Webbon’s comments came during an episode of his NXR+ show, I’ll Take Fascism Over Democracy. The pastor did not hold back, calling the franchise’s message “liberal boomer slop” and telling anyone who connects with it to have a very specific conversation with their father.
Who Is Joel Webbon?
Joel Webbon is not a random voice on the internet. He leads Covenant Bible Church in Georgetown, Texas, and runs Right Response Ministries, a platform that has made him one of the more visible figures in the online Christian nationalist movement. He has 108,000 followers on X and hosts an annual conference that has featured prominent names from the same ideological space.
His track record includes calling for a “Christian Nationalist Caesar” to rule with an “iron fist” and arguing that God punishes nations by putting women in political office. Webbon has also made headlines for claiming that marijuana makes men “spiritually gay” and that female school teachers “turn” boys gay. His Star Wars rant fits a pattern of using pop culture as a vehicle for his broader cultural grievances.
What He Said About Star Wars
The pastor’s critique was not a casual hot take. In the podcast episode, Webbon laid out his case against the franchise in explicit terms.
“It is one of the gayest franchises. One of the gayest stories. One of the gayest, I mean, it is seriously, it is so feminine. It is so feminized. It is so homosexual.”
He did not stop there. Before making that statement, Webbon described the message of Star Wars as “absolutely liberal boomer slop” and delivered a line that quickly became the focal point of the backlash.
“If you like the message of Star Wars, then you need to sit down and tell your dad you’re gay.”
The comments frame a decades-old movie franchise as a tool of what Webbon sees as feminine and homosexual influence. The reasoning, such as it is, appears to be that the films’ themes of hope, rebellion, and chosen family do not align with the rigid gender roles he promotes.
Star Wars Fans Push Back
The response from the Star Wars community was swift and largely mocking. Many fans pointed out that the debate over the franchise’s inclusivity is not new and that a significant portion of the fandom has actually argued for more representation, not less.
A Facebook user named Tim Baldwin commented that Webbon “definitely has a Grindr account,” a joke that circulated widely as fans reacted to the pastor’s fixation on the topic. Others noted that Webbon and others on the political right fundamentally misread the franchise, projecting their own cultural anxieties onto a story about a farm boy who joins a rebellion against an authoritarian empire.
The backlash also highlighted a generational divide. Webbon’s framing of Star Wars as “liberal boomer slop” is at odds with the reality that the original films were themselves products of the 1970s counterculture, drawing on anti-war sentiment and distrust of authority. Fans were quick to point out that the “boomer” label does not quite fit a series that premiered in 1977.
The Franchise’s Actual LGBTQ History
If Webbon believes Star Wars is “one of the gayest franchises,” he is not describing a recent development. The series has been moving, however slowly, toward more inclusive representation for years.
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (2019) featured the franchise’s first same-sex kiss. The moment was brief—a quick embrace between two unnamed female Resistance members during a celebration scene—but it marked a first for the forty-plus-year-old series. Director J.J. Abrams addressed the scene in an interview with Variety, explaining that representation mattered to him.
“In the case of the LGBTQ community, it was important to me that people who go to see this movie feel that they’re being represented in the film.”
More recently, the Disney+ series The Acolyte became a flashpoint for the same culture war. Showrunner Leslye Headland described the show as “arguably the gayest Star Wars by a considerable margin” in an interview, a comment that was seized upon by critics on the right. The series was canceled after one season, and its lead, Amandla Stenberg, later said the cancellation was “not a huge shock” after a “rampage of hyper-conservative bigotry” surrounding the show.
Webbon’s comments, then, are not emerging in a vacuum. They are the latest round in a long-running argument about who Star Wars belongs to and what its stories are allowed to say.
Why This Argument Keeps Returning
The pattern is familiar. A right-wing commentator identifies a piece of mainstream pop culture—a superhero movie, a fantasy series, a space opera—and declares it has been “feminized” or made “gay” as part of a broader cultural decay. The claim generates attention, the fanbase pushes back, and the cycle repeats.
What makes Webbon’s version notable is the sheer bluntness of the language. Calling a franchise “so homosexual” and telling its fans to come out to their fathers is not a nuanced cultural critique. It is a provocation designed to travel, and it did.
You May Also Like:
For Star Wars fans, the irony is hard to miss. The franchise has always been about outsiders finding a place to belong. Webbon’s attempt to police that story has only reminded many of them why they loved it in the first place.
Stay tuned to VvipTimes for more entertainment news and cultural conversations that matter.
Leave a Reply