Fungus on the Family

Millions of people will be watching the Super Bowl on Sunday, but I won’t be one of them.

It’s unfortunate because I always enjoyed watching the game. I’m not much of a football fan, but, like a lot of people, I watch the Super Bowl for the commercials.

But this year I'm boycotting the game because of one commercial in particular--and it’s got nothing to do with the Budweiser Clydesdales.

No, I'm referring to a pile of propaganda being perpetrated by that allegedly “Christian” outfit called Focus on the Family. (Jesus, even their name makes skin crawl.)

They’re behind an ad featuring somebody called Tim Tebow (told you I wasn't a football fan) and his mother, where, according to news reports, she talks about how she ignored her doctor's advise to abort her fifth child and went on to give birth to the big time football hero.

What this little tale has to do with a woman's right to choose eludes me, but I wouldn't expect anything less from Focus founder James Dobson and his merry band of Christian jihadists.

After all, it was Dobson, a Bible-thumping homophobe, who said last October that only a resurgence of Republican power can “save America from national disaster." Apparently he had been in coma for the previous 8 years.

And Dobson also said "homosexuals are not monogamous. They want to destroy the institution of marriage." He went on to claim that the gay rights movement has "sought to implement a master plan that has had as its centerpiece the utter destruction of the family."

Gee, what a nice guy. Maybe CBS can sell ad space to the Klan next year.

Now I’d just like to pause here for a moment and say that on behalf of all my gay friends and family members, I am presenting Dobson and his followers with a 14 karet, solid-gold, four-alarm Kiss my ass!!

Please use it in good health.

This Tebow character actually puts Biblical verses in his eye black in the apparent belief that this makes him a good Christian. I guess he’s following Gerald Ford’s example of playing football without a helmet.

What really sickens me, though, is the role of CBS, which accepted this ad without allowing an alternative point of view.

For example, CBS rejected a 30 second spot by ManCrunch.com, a gay dating Web site based in Toronto. Published reports said the network claimed the company’s credit wasn’t verifiable and that the production values of the spot weren’t up to snuff for Super Bowl Sunday.

I don’t know what the truth is here, but I strongly doubt CBS would have aired the ManCrunch.com ad, even if the company had paid for it in gold bullion and resurrected Cecil B. DeMille to direct it.

CBS also refused to air a gay-themed GoDaddy ad, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. Hmmm, do I sense a theme here?

Under the Bush nightmare, CBS spinelessly rejected issue advertisements by liberal groups.

In 2004, the network turned down Super Bowl ad by The United Church of Christ, which welcomed gay and lesbian Christians and an anti-Bush ad from the liberal group Moveon.Org.

Ideally, there should be no politically charged ads of any kind during the Super Bowl. It really is just a game.

I think we all deserve a break from controversy for one day so we can drink beer, eat unhealthy food and watch funny commercials. Oh, yeah, and watch some football, too.

But CBS crossed the line on this one and I’m not going to play along. I’m sure the network is in no danger of going bankrupt because one hairless guy in Brooklyn decides he won’t tune in. It means a lot to me, however.

I happen to be a Christian, too, and while the fund-a-mental cases blather on about “values” at every conceivable opportunity, I have some values of my own. And they’re telling that what CBS is doing is wrong.

During a game in September, Tim Tebow had “Mark 8:36" on his eye black, which says "For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?"

Yes, what profit, indeed?

I’m sure going to miss those Super Bowl parties. And I’m really going to miss all the other ads that will be broadcast during the game. But at least I’ll be able to look at myself in the mirror. And I’ll still have my soul.