Should Super Bowl ads address morality?

Should Super Bowl ads address morality?
by Manya Brachear
Copyright © 2010, Chicago Tribune
February 04, 2010
http://newsblogs.chicagotribune.com/religion_theseeker/2010/02/should-super-bowl-ads-address-morality.html#more


With a team dubbed “Saints” playing in Super Bowl XLIV, should the messages we watch during the commercial breaks address issues of morality and saintliness? That’s the battle brewing on the sidelines of the National Football League’s championship this year after CBS sold 30 seconds to Focus on the Family for an ad opposing abortion rights; and denied air time to ManCrunch.com, a gay dating site.

CBS has defended its decision to accept the Focus on the Family ad, proclaiming this is the start of a new era of advocacy airtime. The network previously rejected advocacy ads, including messages from MoveOn.org, a progressive political action group, and the progressive United Church of Christ.

The ad scheduled to air on Sunday reportedly highlights how young Heisman trophy winner Tim Tebow’s mother Pam became ill during her pregnancy while on a mission in the Philippines. According to the ad, doctors suggested that she terminate the pregnancy.

Instead, she chose to carry her son to term and a football star was born.

Women’s rights groups have decried the advertisement as offensive to women—a message that shouldn’t be imposed on Super Bowl audiences.
Terry O'Neil, president of the National Organizaton for Women, said he anticipates the ad being “extraordinarily offensive and demeaning.”

“It is offensive to hold one way out as being a superior way over everybody else's,” O'Neill said in a statement.

Lawyer Gloria Allred questions the ad’s accuracy because she doubts doctors at that time would have recommended a procedure that has has been illegal since 1930, punishable by a 6-year prison sentence.

In 2004 and 2005, CBS turned away the United Church of Christ when it tried to buy airtime for an ad demonstrating that all people, including gay and lesbian people, should be welcome in the church. CBS argued that the ad advocated same-sex marriage.The United Church of Christ complained to the FCC. That complaint was dismissed in 2007.

“While CBS is reportedly saying that a bad economy now necessitates changes in its policy on so-called advocacy ads, this decision only underscores the arbitrary way the networks approach these decisions and the result is a woeful lack of religious diversity in our nation's media,” says the Rev. J. Bennett Guess, the UCC's director of communications.

Guess told National Public Radio that CBS’s lack of balance perpetuates the misunderstanding that all people of faith hold the same views on issues such as reproductive choice and homosexuality.

ABC also rejected the UCC’s ads in 2005, saying it did not accept any religious advertising. The network aired an ad from Focus on the Family during the SuperNanny show. CBS did reject a few commercials this year though. One rejected commercial from Mancrunch.com, a gay dating site with the slogan “where many, many, many men come out to play,” featured two football fans whose hands meet in the potato chip bowl, resulting in a liplock.

Another rejected ad by GoDaddy.com featured a stereotypical gay man as a fictional former football player achieving his dream of launching a women’s lingerie line with the help of the Internet domain registrar and web hosting company. Another GoDaddy.com ad is said to feature even racier content.

Some Christian groups have staged prayer vigils outside CBS headquarters to show their gratitude for the network’s decision to air the Tebow ad.

Morality in Media president Robert Peters commended the decision to reject the other ads, adding that the substance of GoDaddy.com’s Super Bowl ads is not the only problem.

“GoDaddy.com also provides services to businesses that distribute over the Internet, free of charge and without proof of age, hardcore adult pornography,” Peters said. “Not that any of the above would concern CBS, but it should concern NFL owners and everyone else concerned about the well being of children and the proliferation of smut on TV and the Internet.”

Is the Super Bowl a time to stir debates about abortion, homosexuality and pornography or should commercials focus on potato chips, soda pop and give us a break?

The Ad....you won't be seeing... Sean James and Al Joyner respond to the Tebow Super Bowl ad http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=utcxpuHF7jg

A Super Bowl ad too far? Straights can take it By Kevin Huffman. Copyright by The Washington Post. Saturday, February 6, 2010. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/04/AR2010020403562.html