Focus on the Family Flips Out

by Michael Jones · 2010-03-02 10:02:00 UTC
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NCAAWhat happens when a rabidly anti-gay organization gets a mirror held up to its face? They freak out, that's what.

Focus on the Family and their co-horts the American Family Association have gone ballistic over the National Collegiate Athletic Association's (NCAA) decision to remove 'Focus' advertisements from the Web site ncaa.com.  The NCAA made the decision to remove the ads last week, after hundreds of folks wrote to them expressing their displeasure. The 'Focus' ads ran under the banner "Celebrate Family, Celebrate Life." Except when it comes to Focus on the Family, the only thing they're interested in celebrating is taking away civil rights for LGBT folks.

Today, Focus on the Family issued a response to the NCAA's decision that can best be classified as falling between cry-baby and spoil sport. According to the organization, the NCAA is -- wait for it -- DISCRIMINATING against Christians.

Puh-lease.

"By scrubbing this ad, is the NCAA saying we want our sons to grow up knowing how to do the wrong thing? With the number of NCAA athletes who get in trouble with the law every week, you'd think the NCAA would enthusiastically support a message which urges fathers to be great role models for their sons and athletes-to-be," Focus says.

Way to overgeneralize about NCAA athletes. But beyond that, no, the NCAA isn't sending the wrong message. By refusing to air the ads, the NCAA is saying that Focus on the Family's definition of family is too "exclusive," and that organizations who promote fear and homophobia don't belong on the Web site of college sports.

Joe Jervis at Joe.My.God has what might be the best analysis of this incident imaginable.

"When you've spent the last 30 years literally demonizing tens of millions of Americans, don't look so fucking shocked when others want nothing to do with your bigoted asses," Jervis writes.

God, how I'd like to give Joe Jervis a megaphone, and place him right outside the headquarters of CBS, which apparently has no problem cozying up to the type of homophobia and queer demonizing that has been a hallmark of Focus's work for three decades.

Meanwhile, despite the NCAA's decision to pull the Focus ads from their Web site, there's still some concern that CBS -- which as RH Reality Check writes might as well be renamed the Christian Broadcasting System -- will run Focus on the Family ads during the telecast of the men's basketball "March Madness" tournament. Check out the YouTube clip below from Sean Chapin, and notice how Chapin ties together the history of homophobia that has reverberated from Focus on the Family's mouths over the years with CBS.

Remember, Focus on the Family has no interest in celebrating all families. Only the ones they deem worthy.

Photo credit: Joe Shlabotnik

Michael Jones is a Change.org Editor. He has worked in the field of human rights communications for a decade, most recently for Harvard Law School.
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