Shuck and Jive


Thursday, January 28, 2010

Superstition at the Superbowl

At first I didn't make much of the concern that Tim "Eye Black for Jesus" Tebow was starring in some superstitious commercial during the Superbowl. I certainly don't agree with the so-called pro-life movement, but hey, if you want to spend two and half million on a 30 second ad, Focus on the Family has as much right to spread its superstition as does Pepsi.

Then I discovered that CBS is selective regarding its superstition. It had previously rejected an advertisement from The United Church of Christ. The UCC rightly has asked what is up with that?

Why is only one Christian viewpoint -- the Focus on the Family conservative right viewpoint (opposing gay marriage and women's reproductive rights)-- welcome on the air?
The UCC has a point. But they aren't going to try to buy an ad for the Superbowl. They have a better point:
No, says spokesman Rev. J. Bennett Guess, they'd rather send any millions available to relief in Haiti right now.

8 comments:

  1. Snark makes the baby Jesus cry. Unless it's from atheists.

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  2. I'm not sure what Dr. Monkey meant, but, taking his comment at face value, here's another snark (and it's not from an atheist):

    Focus on the Family and other right-wing religionists are leading the masses of uninformed, biblically illiterate Christians to oppose any assistance to Haiti. The point seems to be that the Haitians can take care of themselves, since they did nothing to help the U.S. when the terrorists blew up New York. And besides, why should the U.S. be the only country to come to their rescue? We need to take care of ourselves first.

    I am not making this up.

    While the UCC is probably on the higher moral ground in deciding not to spend money on a counter-ad for the superbowl (if that is what they wanted to do), they end up looking sanctimonious.

    There are no winners in this dispute . . . especially not Haitians (where AIDS and TB are rampant) or GLBT folk, who may be most at risk for AIDS and TB in this great country of ours.

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  3. @Sea

    Really? I didn't realize that regarding right wing groups and Haitians. Do you have a link (not that I doubt you I just want to see it).

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  4. Hi John.

    Here is the URL to a related article in today's New York Times:
    ttp://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/30/us/30airlift.html?th&emc=th
    (I don't know how to actually create the link in this comment format)

    What I am picking up on is commentary in the Martinsburg Journal Junction, which is a daily free-for-all rant fest. The objections to helping Haitians because we haven't first helped Katrina victims, or because they didn't help us during 9/11 (a patently absurd and dangerously false idea) have been there.

    Plus, today's NY Times commentary also has an op-ed regarding a national "us first" feeling. I'll close this comment and get that URL for you.

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  5. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/30/opinion/30collins.html?th&emc=th

    The topic of this article is the growing demand to either move the KSM trial out of Manhattan or switch to military tribunal, so it doesn't precisely match the Haiti point I was making.

    But the writer's point is that there has been a national shift to "me-first" and NIMBY.

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  6. Not a fan of Tebow, nor of CBS now. Apparently loving gay people is more inflammatory than the debate over abortion.

    Amazing. We've come so far from our humble Puritan roots...

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