Pro-abortion and homosexual ‘rights’ groups have attacked the decision of CBS television network to air an advert by Focus on the Family during the championship game of the National Football League in the US.
The advert tells the story of Tim Tebow, 23, an outstanding American football player from the Florida Gators football team, whose mother refused to abort him when doctors advised her to do so to protect her life. Despite the doctors’ advice, she decided to carry Tim to term and both survived.
Today, Tim is a Heisman Trophy-winning American football quarterback for his team. He was the first college football player to win the highest sporting awards in a season and was the first sophomore to win the Heisman.
Focus on the Family, a global non-profit Christian organisation with a vision for healing brokenness in families, communities and societies worldwide through Christ, is planning to screen the advert at the Super Bowl championship game, the most watched event on US television, to feature Tim and his mother telling how she was told to abort her son in 1987.
However, pro-abortion and homosexual advocacy groups have complained about the message. The Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, the Women’s Media Centre, the United Church of Christ, a group advocating homosexual 'rights', are among those who expressed their unease with the advert.
Jehmu Greene, President of the Women’s Media Centre, a US pro-abortion advocacy group, says she wants the advert to be removed from the games’ agenda, despite the fact that she has never seen it. Speaking to Bill O’Reilly on the Fox News’s O’Reilly Factor she said:
‘CBS has approved this ad in contradiction of their policy. It is that very choice that Pam Tebow [Tim’s mother] was able to make about her reproductive health decisions that this ad is trying to take away from American women.’
Bill O’Reilly asked: ‘If it is a positive choice and I am happy that this choice was made, like Tim is happy, why is that taking anything away from anybody? It is a positive statement.’
Greene responded: ‘This is clearly a thinly veiled attempt to undermine a woman’s right to make decisions about her reproductive health.’
‘Why do you want to muzzle these guys, Jehmu? That is not the American way,’ asked O’Reilly.
‘If it is a positive message, and it is My Story and I am here to tell it, even if it is a pro-life message, you cannot muzzle that in the United States of America.’
(Click here to watch the interview)
Fr. Frank Pavone, National Director of Priests for Life, commented:
‘Why should it bother people who call themselves pro-choice if women watch Pam Tebow and her son Tim on Super Bowl Sunday and freely decide to choose life? Would fewer abortions be a bad thing?
‘As for the argument that the ad should not be shown because it is divisive, since when do we broadcast only things on which the American people all agree? In that case, the Super Bowl itself could not be broadcast,’ he added.
Life Site News, a non-profit Internet service dedicated to issues of culture, life, and family, has launched a petition to support the CBS’s decision to air Tim Tebow Super Bowl Ad.
(Click here to access the petition)
Since the controversy started, a number of NFL football professionals have thrown their personal support behind Tim.
As a sophomore in the 2007 American football season, Tim Tebow became the Gators' starting quarterback and broke the South-eastern Conference records for both rushing touchdowns and total touchdowns accounted for in a single season. In addition to the Heisman Trophy, his performance in 2007 also earned him the Maxwell Award as the US top football player, the Davey O'Brien Award as the American best quarterback, and the James E. Sullivan Award as the nation's most outstanding amateur athlete in any sport.