The Super Bowl: A Call for Tolerance and Fairness, Not Censorship

With all the hubbub lately over Focus on the Family's Tim Tebow commercial, set to air during the Super Bowl, the Grey Lady has decided to weigh in on the advertisement in an editorial today.

The New York Times objects to women's rights groups that have pushed for the ad to be removed from the air as pushing censorship. There's merit to the advice that reproductive rights supporters take this commercial from the rabidly anti-choice Focus on Family and treat it as evidence that a woman deserves to make this decision herself (Amanda Marcotte makes a similar argument at RH Reality Check regarding the hypocrisy of groups trying to turn back Roe v. Wade celebrating a woman's choice). Hey, I'm thrilled to hear that we were mistaken, that this is not an anti-choice, but rather a pro-life and pro-choice ad, and Focus on the Family and the right-wing have had a sudden change of heart and now support a woman's fundamental right to choose! And I intend to hold them to this support for a woman's right to choose in the future. I guess we can go ahead and take those abortion restrictions out of the health care bill now? What, still no?

However, the Times leaves out a massive chunk of the story. Namely, while applauding CBS for changing its no-advocacy ads policy, the Times fails to mention that the network only claimed to have changed its policy conveniently after accepting the Focus on the Family ad. In the past, it has rejected an LGBT-friendly, pro-religious diversity commercial from the welcoming United Church of Christ (UCC) due to this policy. Thus, our petition on Change.org, which has garnered almost 4,000 signatures co-running on the Gay Rights and Women's Rights blogs, doesn't call for "censorship." It tells CBS not to use double standards to favor anti-choice, homophobic organizations -- that it should either uphold its no-advocacy policy and reject Focus on the Family, or it should offer the UCC another chance to air their ad.

For those who are interested, here is the very progressive, hardly controversial UCC ad that was rejected:

Oh, and another thing: The Times editorial writes, "After the network screens ads for accuracy and taste, viewers can watch and judge for themselves." Accuracy and taste, huh? I do think running an advertisement regarding abortion from a rabidly homophobic organization whose founder has suggested a link between abortion and the tragedy of 9/11 is in bad taste, but okay, I guess that's just me.

So let's talk accuracy instead: as I blogged a couple days ago, the Center for Reproductive Rights has raised the possibility that the Tebows' story is a big, fat lie -- since abortion has been criminalized, no exceptions, in the Philippines for over a century, the idea that Pam Tebow chose not to have an abortion against her doctor's advice is highly suspicious. Did CBS bother to screen this ad for accuracy before giving it the green light they denied UCC? Lawyer Gloria Allred has already warned that if the ad contains false advertising, CBS could face legal repercussions.

Since nobody has actually seen the planned ad yet, maybe the network can have Focus on the Family hurry up and attach a disclaimer that the stories presented in this commercial are fictional. Or, even better, they can change the ad to something that might be more accurate: the story of a woman lucky enough not to number among the thousands of women who die every year from pregnancy-related causes in the Philippines, where controlling a woman's body is more important than protecting her health or life.