HGTV calls off show starring twins who hate gays, Muslims, divorce, and public schools

HGTV abruptly called off a new reality show featuring twin brothers who have organized prayer rallies against LGBT and reproductive rights and compared same-sex marriage to Nazi Germany.

"Flip It Forward," which was scheduled to premier in October, was supposed to feature David and Jason Benham as they helped families buy, repair, and sell real estate.

The twins will “leverage their good-natured sibling rivalry to help families find a fixer-upper and transform it into the dream home they never thought they could afford,” the network said in a press release announcing nine new series for next season.

But the cable network, which is owned by Scripps Networks Interactive, announced it had dropped plans for the show less than two hours after Raw Story called seeking comment about the twins and their political activism.

"HGTV has decided not to move forward with the Benham Brothers' series," the network announced Wednesday afternoon on its Facebook page.

David Benham led a prayer rally, Charlotte 7:14, organized with his twin brother outside the 2012 Democratic National Convention to protest “abortion on demand,” “no-fault divorce,” “pornography and perversion,” “adultery,” and “demonic ideologies” taught at public schools and universities.

“(Meanwhile), the church sits silent and just builds big churches,” David Benham told conservative Christian radio host Janet Mefferd. “We are so complacent, we are so apathetic and we are very hypocritical in the church, that’s why the Bible says judgment begins in the house of God.”

He also told Mefferd he worked to pass North Carolina’s Amendment One, which bans same-sex marriage and civil unions.

“When Amendment One passed I realized the only three counties in North Carolina that actually voted against the amendment were Charlotte, Raleigh and Asheville, our three cities,” he told Mefferd. “So we had all the rural areas and all the suburban areas but we lost all the cities. So I felt like, OK, it’s time that we have a citywide church service of repentance and that’s the reason that we decided to do it right in the heart of Charlotte the night before the DNC.”

David Benham serves on the board of the anti-LGBT Coalition of Conscience and has referred to Muslims as “the enemy attacking” America.

“The difference between Islam and Christianity: Islam takes life and enslaves it,” he said. “Christianity lays its life down and sets you free.”

The brothers are the sons of Flip Benham, leader of the abortion-clinic protest group Operation Save America, which split from the militant anti-abortion group Operation Rescue in the late 1990s.

The elder Benham baptized Norma McCorvey – the plaintiff in the landmark Roe v. Wade decision – and protested outside mosques while shouting “Jesus hates Muslims” and blamed the Democratic Party for promoting a “culture of death” that caused the mass shooting in Aurora, Colorado.

Flip Benham was convicted in 2011 of stalking a Charlotte, N.C., abortion provider and sentenced to 18 months probation.

In a 2012 blog post on Operation Save America’s website, David Benham compared the fight against marriage to opposition to Nazi Germany.

“If evil is being accepted and appreciated at the national level, aggressive Christian men must lead the charge against it,” David Benham wrote. “In the late 1940s England realized this truth with Neville Chamberlain’s Policy of Appeasement and the Nazi regime. Chamberlain thought he could somehow ‘appease’ the fuehrer, yet Winston Churchill aggressively stood against this policy and proclaimed that they must kill Hitler and destroy the regime in its entirety. It wasn’t long before Chamberlain’s ‘politically correct’ policy fell flat on its face, and Churchill – the more aggressive man – took the reins and joined America in defeating the beast.”

David Benham also suggested in the Christian Post that support for marriage equality was the result of psychological issues.

“For the men on the other side of this vote, I’ll say a couple of things: You’ll never find the love of a father in the arms of another man,” he wrote. “The emotional hurt that you’ve experienced can only be healed through a life-giving relationship with the very one that created you.”

Watch this profile of David and Jason Benham posted online by CBN-TV: