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Florida QB Tim Tebow and his mother Pam were featured |
WHILE walking into eighth-grade English one day, I saw my teacher at the blackboard drawing a large circle around a newspaper clipping. She began class by focusing on me, and pointing out to the students that the clipping was a letter to the editor in our local newspaper penned by yours truly. I was surprised to see it since I was not aware that it had been printed; however, I was even more surprised to spend the next 10 minutes being berated by my teacher for my "misguided" views.
The letter I had written pertained to a pro-life rally that had occurred in downtown Buffalo. Newspaper coverage of the rally greatly underreported the turnout at the event, and my letter to the editor simply pointed that out. It was not an abortion letter. However, that didn't stop my teacher from twisting what I had written and chastising me for having an opinion different from her own. So I simply sat there and waited for her to finish.
After class I delicately reminded her of her challenge to the students at the beginning of the year: Whoever managed to get "published" could opt out of an English test. It may have not been the best of timing, but she owned up to it nonetheless.
What drives an adult to go after the psyche of an eighth-grader as if we were on the set of "Hardball"? I mean, come on, who does that?
Opinions--they are powerful, and bring out the best and worst in people.
So resistance to and calls for censorship over Tim Tebow's Super Bowl commercial should, in some ways, come as no surprise
Controversial? A mother and son imparting a message of family and life is controversial?
The problem, of course, is that this group and others didn't see the ad before launching the salvos. So, to infer that it is divisive and controversial puts them on the hook if it isn't. And that is exactly what happened.
The Tebow ad was about life and family, and directed viewers to a Web site that told more about the Tebow story. It is the story of a mother undergoing a very difficult pregnancy who chose to give birth to her child. That child grew up to be one of the greatest college football players in the nation, and apparently a pretty good guy as well.
The 30-second ad that ran during the Super Bowl was not a horrific abortion ad showing the destruction of a child. No one was throwing blood or passing out fetuses. That is why this pro-life message is so difficult for the pro-choice movement to counter, because it simply celebrated life and, through that, celebrated choice.
Yes, choice. That is what this commercial was about. Yet some pro-choice groups opposed this ad because they did not agree with the decision a woman made 23 years ago to give birth to her child. If choice is their mission, then their opinion on this ad should have been one of ambivalence.
ADVOCATING WHAT?
So if these groups cannot embrace a message focusing on a woman's choice for life, then what are they about and what are they advocating? If they really stand for protecting choice, then the Tebows are a shining example of a system where choice can end happily. But if their purpose is to promote abortion as the choice, well then, this ad and the story behind it will keep them up at night.
On the losing side of this debate, family pro-choice groups worked to muzzle the Tebows' right to tell their story, and more alarmingly, our right to hear it.
We are in an age where if a dad watches football with his 7-year-old son, he had better be prepared to explain awkward Viagra and Cialis commercials or ads for an unimaginative sitcom where the hook is simply sex. So the fact that there are groups trying to keep me from seeing an ad that promotes family and the importance of life disgusts me.
The opposition to the Tebow ad was an act of desperation and reflects poorly on activist groups that went after free speech in their attempt to stop it. Now that folks have seen the ad and understand the pettiness behind the opposition, I imagine that even more Americans will see the forest for the trees and realize that many of these groups that hang their hat on preserving the right to choose have nothing to do with "choice" at all. If they did, they would have embraced the choice made by this mother and her right to exercise it.
If you think about it, this ad and the story behind it provided both pro-life and pro-choice folks a chance
So kudos to Pam and Tim Tebow--God knows they're going to get more grief than I did in eighth-grade English. Maybe this advocacy for family and life will soften the debate and remove extremist tactics on both sides of the line. This mother and son can redefine the meaning of choice in the abortion debate and in the process show the world that choosing life can be a wonderful thing.
Chris Connelly was chief of staff and communications director for the late Rep. Jo Ann Davis. He lives in Stafford County.
