All posts tagged TIm Tebow

I am so sick of Tim Tebow.

I am sick of hearing about him,  about how he and his mother, Pam Tebow, are slated to tell the Super Bowl audience on Sunday that they’re glad he is alive because she chose not to heed warnings of medical professionals during a dangerous pregnancy – in the Phillipines, a country where abortion has been illegal since long before the senior University of Florida quarterback was a Bible-verse-painted gleam in his missionary parents’ eyes, so I’m not even sure what kind of choice she had.

(Or at least that’s supposedly what they’re going to do on evangelical organization Focus on the Family’s dime, in what probably even Kanye would call one of the most notorious as-yet-unaired multi-million dollar public service announcements of all time.)

I am sick of hearing about how, unsuccessful in his bid to kill off cartoon character Spongebob Squarepants for his alleged raging homosexuality a few years back, FOF founder James Hobson’s crew, led by current CEO Jim Daly, has shifted the family’s focus to football fans, softened as many of the latter may be by six hours of Bud Light and nachos.

I am tired of hearing about how CBS has refused ads from other groups that present arguably less conservative viewpoints, while tacking on a pre-game run of additional Focus on the Family ads.

“We have for some time moderated our approach to advocacy submissions after it became apparent that our stance did not reflect public sentiment or industry norms,” said CBS spokesperson, Shannon Jacobs.

I have no idea what that means, Shannon Jacobs, so I’m tired of you too.

I am tired of this not because of any political difference of opinion I have with Focus on the Family, honestly, and not just because I have Tebow news fatigue. I get the central arguments here. I understand why women’s organizations have a problem with an ad like this running during an event that is heavily marketed to men, that is a sporting event enjoyed by millions across the country, with special good vibes this year given the excitement of the city of New Orleans over the Saints’ first visit to the contest (and yes, I’m sure Indianapolis is feeling pretty excited too.) I get why Momocrats are supporting a Tailgate for Choice. I understand the generation of petitions and the feelings of people who believe that CBS is exhibiting bias in this case.

I also fully understand why, given the access to millions of people parked in front of their televisions, some of them primarily for the commercials, any group would use it to broadcast their central message. And because I’m a fan of the First Amendment, I stand by their right to hire a star college football quarterback who is an avowed Christian and a potential NFL player as the medium for their message.

I just think it’s absurd that a country like this will bicker for weeks about a commercial that no one has seen. I think it’s nuts that an alleged nonprofit organization will spend $2.5 million to buy 30 seconds – 30 seconds – of ideological airtime that it could have spent helping sisters and their babies out in the Super Bowl’s host city of Miami or just a skip across the ocean to Haiti, for that matter -  anywhere there are people with need, anywhere there are people who are making or have made tough choices about family. Because if as they say this ad is a multimillion dollar investment in celebrating life and family, maybe there’s a better, more productive way than a commercial.

I don’t get it. Or maybe I do, because I’m not that dim, and I just don’t like it.

When I think of Super Bowl commercials I think of beer, and maybe cars. I think of Pepsi, who won’t be there at all this year, and unfortunately I think of cave men, which makes me inclined to never, ever be a Geico customer, so that effort failed. Sometimes when I’m feeling down and blue I watch Terry Tate’s Office Linebacker clips because apparently random violence and screaming entertain me. (Which all the same does not mean I’m going to go out and kick some ass, nor to buy Reebok anything. I’m a wild card picker, just to be clear.)

For a change, I do not think of social issues, and the people who would like to tell me how to think about them. I think about football, and also nachos, and what the hell a down is, anyway.

Tim Tebow could explain that to me, which would in fact be very useful, but he and his mom are not going to make me think any harder or more deeply about life and family. They wouldn’t have if I hadn’t heard anything about this beforehand and they won’t now. I’ll just notice them more than I would have in the first place because frankly, I can’t avoid them.

But if I were CBS, I’d watch out for the South Florida Grannies.

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