On The Beach Blog

Updated 02/02/2010 – 12:18 pm

One needn't be a sports fan to have taken notice of the on-going controversy surrounding 2007 Heisman Trophy winner Tim Tebow and a scheduled Super Bowl XLIV paid advertisement on behalf of the conservative Christian group Focus on the Family.

The burning controversy?

It's a "pro-life" message featuring Tebow's mother who had been advised by her doctor to terminate the pregnancy which ultimately de­livered baby Tim... and a coalition of women's groups that includes NOW and the Feminist Majority, don't want anyone to see it.

Sweet honey-mustard! Is the pro-choice position so tenuous that a 30-second spot during the Super Bowl going to eviscerate their entire message and expose them as frauds?

(A half-minute of coveted air-time during the most-watched telecast of the year costs "between $2.5 and $2.8 million.")

If feminist pro-choicers were going to speak out against Super Bowl advertising, one would expect them to express their collective enmity over the spate of advertising spots which bla­tantly objectify the female form to attract male viewers' attentions.

(And as a penis-encumbered person, I'll stipulate that, yes, most of my gender is susceptible to most forms of the female form, and such susceptibility is directly proportional to the amount of skin on display.)

Disclaimer: I not only have no horse in this race, the Pro-Choice/Pro-Life issue is no longer any of my business, #1, and, #2, during the period in my life when it could have been my business, it would have only been in a non-binding, advisory role. The deciding vote would have always been with the woman.

As much as I find the actual abortion proce­dure unsavory, even more distasteful is any male imposing his will on a woman in respect to what she can do with her body.

"Cop-out?" Perhaps, but I don't think that de­cision is any of my business.

But I cannot help but be stunned by the hypocrisy of the Liberal pro-choice groups who've gone into a frenzy because CBS has agreed to telecast the commercial during February 7th's Super Bowl.

I put them in a class with Nazi book-burners.

Addendum

Another "controversy" regarding Super Bowl advertising broke this weekend when the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation raised hell over CBS' decision to reject a commercial for gay hook-up site ManCrunch.com, calling the action "a homophobic double standard."

(This is the rejected spot.)

[le sigh] That it's already available on YouTube should be a clue as to what's going on here.

Take a look for yourself... it's not "catching."

The 30-second spot is amateurishly-produced, and one more befitting a Saturday Night Live parody from its less-creative era.

In short, they can not seriously have expected any network to have accepted that spot for prime time broadcast, so their intention is as clear as that of the Buddhist monks who im­molated themselves on the streets of Saigon 40-odd years ago.

And in the spontaneous utterance of my dear wife when I broached the subject for her view:

"Hey, I don't want to see two guys swap­ping spit any more than Janet Jackson's bare tit."

Just so, m'dear... just so!