Jonathan Bennett Defends LGBTQ Hallmark Movies Against MAGA Backlash

Jonathan Bennett has played the romantic lead before, but his Hallmark career has grown beyond a string of Christmas movies. The former Mean Girls star helped bring the channel its first same-sex kiss, its first LGBTQ-led holiday movie and its first gay wedding. Now, as MAGA viewers push back, Bennett says he’s more determined than ever to tell love stories that look like his own. His response to the criticism is clear: he plans to keep going.

Jonathan Bennett Has a Message for His Critics

In an interview with Obsessed: The Podcast, Bennett described the current political climate as a reason to commit more deeply to queer storytelling, not retreat from it. Pushback against his films has only sharpened his sense of purpose.

He said this moment makes him want to double and triple down on the love stories he tells and the representation he brings to the screen. Bennett’s promise was personal: I will always tell love stories that look like mine, because so many people need to see them.

For Bennett, Visibility Is Worth the Pushback

That resolve comes from an actor who has seen the response to his work change over time. Bennett first became widely known as Aaron Samuels in the 2004 comedy Mean Girls. Today, he’s also one of Hallmark’s most recognizable holiday stars, with a career closely tied to milestones in LGBTQ representation.

He’s been direct about the cost of staying visible. Bennett told the podcast he intends to do whatever it takes to keep making these stories. He also pushed back against the idea that political hostility can make queer audiences or their stories disappear: The gay community is still there. The gay community didn’t go anywhere.

The Hallmark Kiss That Changed Everything

Bennett’s commitment didn’t begin with a recent interview. It took on new meaning while he was filming The Christmas House, the 2020 movie that featured Hallmark’s first same-sex kiss.

During production, Bennett noticed an unusually large group of crew members gathering to watch a scene with his co-star Brad Harder. Even the caterers had come over. At first, he didn’t understand why everyone had gathered.

A Moment the Whole Crew Wanted to Witness

According to Bennett, the director explained that the kiss was a first for Hallmark, and people wanted to see it happen. The realization hit him immediately. What could have been just one scene in a holiday movie became a moment that clarified why this work mattered to him.

He described the feeling as lightning going through his body. In that instant, he said, the questions he’d carried about his career and his path suddenly made sense: This is my mission.

The scene’s importance reached beyond Bennett’s own experience. Hallmark has long been associated with familiar holiday romances, and The Christmas House placed a same-sex kiss within that tradition. It was brief, but historic for the channel. And as the crowd on set showed, the people making it knew that too.

From a First Kiss to a First Gay Wedding

The kiss wasn’t the last milestone Bennett helped bring to Hallmark. In 2022, The Holiday Sitter became the channel’s first LGBTQ-led holiday movie. That same year, Bennett married his partner, Jaymes Vaughan, after publicly coming out as gay in a 2017 Instagram post featuring the two of them.

His Hallmark work continued with The Groomsmen, which featured the channel’s first gay wedding. The film won Outstanding Film at the 2025 GLAAD Media Awards, an honor Bennett sees as evidence that these stories have an enduring place on screen.

Why the GLAAD Win Mattered to Him

Bennett told the podcast he views the award against a backdrop of political pressure. He sees Trumpism as an outside force pushing the idea that queer stories don’t matter. For him, the honor for The Groomsmen affirmed the opposite: audiences and storytellers still want to see those lives represented.

This is not just a flash in the pan, Bennett said of that commitment. He vowed to keep making movies for as long as he can, even as he acknowledged that the present moment feels dark. It’s a firm answer to anyone hoping criticism might persuade him to step away from LGBTQ-focused romances.

He Is Not Slowing Down

Hallmark is only one part of Bennett’s screen career. Since 2016, he has hosted Food Network’s Halloween Wars, whose 16th season premiered Sept. 13. He’s also played Detective Joe Fitzpatrick on the ABC daytime soap General Hospital since May.

And there’s another holiday movie ahead: Bennett stars in Single at the Wedding, scheduled to air Dec. 20 on the Hallmark Channel. For viewers who know him as Aaron Samuels, the breadth of that résumé may come as a surprise.

For those who have followed his Hallmark films, his latest comments sound like a continuation of the work he’s already been doing. Bennett can’t control the backlash his projects attract. What he can control, he says, is whether he keeps showing up to make them.

From a kiss that stopped a film crew in its tracks to a wedding recognized by GLAAD, his Hallmark career has given him plenty of reasons to believe those stories are worth telling, and no intention of letting their critics have the final word.