Despite ample hype that Candace Cameron Bure was going to be joining The View, the evangelical talk show host was notably missing from what should have been her first day on the job. Tuesday marked the beginning of The View's 19th season. Whoopi Goldberg kicked the conversation off and welcomed back Joy Behar.
After a brief conversation about what each of the show's stars had done during the off season, the co-hosts quickly launched into a discussion about Kim Davis, the Kentucky county clerk who was jailed for refusing to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples.
Although Cameron Bure's image was in the opening credits, the new co-host was nowhere to be found during the Kim Davis discussion. Halfway through the show, after the conversation had turned to other topics, she came out to join her fellow co-hosts. This has caused some at
Fox News to speculate that ABC chose to hold her back in case she and Raven-Symone started their first day together in a fight over same-sex marriage. Others might argue that Cameron Bure herself asked not to participate in the first half of the show.
The theories have merit. When Cameron Bure had a guest spot back in July, she and Raven-Symone got into a tiff over whether a bakery has the right to refuse to bake a cake for a same-sex couple. It's conceivable that either ABC or Cameron Bure wanted to avoid negative press, and so decided to make her entrance a little more low-key than her guest spot had been. However, it would also have made sense for there to be controversy on day one in order to get better ratings.
Regardless, it will be interesting to see how future conversations around queer rights play out on The View.
