Abortion and the Super Bowl. Put that in your pipe and smoke it.
Yep, CBS has sold a 30-second Super Bowl spot to the evangelical, anti-abortion, anti-gay activist group Focus on the Family. I suppose they think it’s relevant and acceptable because it features a football player, Tim Tebow, and his mom.
Wrong!
The Super Bowl is a sports event, not a political forum, not a religious gathering. We turn to the Super Bowl to escape the stressful, controversial, divisive real world for a few hours to settle our differences on the field. My team vs. your team. May the better team win. We don’t tune in to be accosted by someone else’s religious or political views. I don’t care how nice Tim Tebow might be; the Super Bowl is not the place to tell us why his mom decided not to have an abortion.
I, for one, can find better ways to spend my time if that’s the way CBS wants to handle the year’s biggest sports event. And I told them so, using the tiny “Customer Feedback” link at the very bottom of the CBS home page.
Bad decision, CBS. Very bad.
I hope it’s at least an amusing ad. Although I’m having a hard time seeing how you can make abortion amusing without being politically incorrect.
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I agree. Whatever approach it takes, I don’t see how humor could be a part of it. “Ha, ha Mom. Aren’t we glad you didn’t abort your little cash register?” just doesn’t cut it.
I sincerely hope that this ad would bring hope and healing to women and not the type of condemnation and ridicule that so many have cynically come to expect. That would be the kind of thing that could truly bring people together instead of politicizing this issue and dividing us further. Anything less would be a disappointment.
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The issue is already politicized and divisive in the extreme and no ad is going to change that. Sports fans tuning into the Super Bowl do not expect or want to see an ad about one of the most inflammatory issues of our time, no matter how warm and fuzzy the tone. Messages of hope and healing should come from the pulpit, where the congregation is seeking such things, or in private conversation. Women in crisis, like everyone else in the SB audience, will be tuning in to escape and forget their problems for a few hours, not be reminded of them.
Bring people together? What is there to bring people together over? My body, my choice, no one else’s business. There is nothing further to discuss.