US Features

Kissing men, missionary moms: Controversy hits Super Bowl Sunday

Feb 4, 2010, 14:46 GMT

Super Bowl XLIV - Media Party at South Beach, FL, USA © Image of Sport / PR Photos

Los Angeles - Super Bowl broadcaster CBS is facing flack in the US for its decision to ban a half-time ad for a gay dating service while permitting a conservative commercial that takes a stance against abortion.

The anti-abortion ad features a star quarterback who was born only after his sick mother ignored doctors' advice to have an abortion.

From The New York Times to the lowliest blogger, the decision to air the story of college football star Tim Tebow is being endlessly discussed in the US media ahead of the US sporting highlight on Sunday.

The Super Bowl American football match will see the New Orleans' Saints face off against the Indianapolis Colts. The Saints, who are in the iconic Super Bowl for the first time ever, are the sentimental favourites as a symbol of New Orleans' rejuvenation after its 2005 destruction in Hurricane Katrina.

The ad was produced by Christian conservative group Focus on the Family and reportedly recounts the pregnancy of missionary Pam Tebow.

She fell ill during a mission to the Philippines and though doctors feared she would die in labour, she ignored their advice to abort her fifth child, who, lo and behold, went on to win the 2007 Heisman Trophy given to the best college football player.

Her son also shares her missionary zeal, painting scripture verses on his face for games.

The decision to screen the ad overturned a traditional policy of rejecting advocacy ads during the most watched program on the US television calendar, to which many people tune in as much to catch the commercials as the sport.

The controversy deepened when the broadcaster rejected an ad from gay dating site Mancrunch.com that showed two men kissing. CBS said it did not meet the network's standards for the highly watched event.

'CBS has a problem when they do something like this at the same time as they allow an anti-gay group like Focus on the Family to place ads during the Super Bowl,' the president of the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD), Jarrett Barrios, said in a statement Wednesday. 'This network should come clean to the public about what's going on because this seems to be a homophobic double standard.'

Women's groups also rushed to condemn the anti-abortion spot, saying that it could pressure women into having unwanted babies with all the problems that entails for themselves and society as a whole.

A letter sent to CBS by the Women's Media Center and other groups argues that the commercial 'uses one family's story to dictate morality to the American public, and encourages young women to disregard medical advice, putting their lives at risk.'

But even the usually liberal New York Times sided with CBS and the Tebows on this case.

'The would-be censors are on the wrong track,' the paper offered in an editorial Wednesday, saying that pro-choice groups should make their own ad to convey what their movement is all about: 'protecting the right of women like Pam Tebow to make their private reproductive choices.'

'CBS was right,' the paper concluded. 'After the network screens ads for accuracy and taste, viewers can watch and judge for themselves. Or they can get up from the couch and get a sandwich.'