Several weeks ago, someone told me to keep an eye out for the Superbowl commercial featuring Tim Tebow, who went from being almost aborted to a champion for homeschooler rights to a champion for the Florida Gators. There were, evidently, swirls of controversy plaguing this commercial - would it be aired? Would it be aired in its original entirety? Would they be pushing their Christian agenda too much? So, I did what I thought anybody else would have done – I googled. I probably researched a dozen articles about the commercial, and they all said the same thing – Tim and his mom, Pam, were going to be featured in a Focus on the Family commercial. According to the CEO of Focus on the Family, the intent of the commercial was to inspire people at a time when “families need to be inspired”. No other details about the commercial were being released.

Then, the articles featured a funny twist when the reporters gave their opinion in regard to the content of the commercial. And, because we live in a generation where stay-at-home moms are glued to Facebook and have constant access to our around-the-clock news cycle, we were now eating chatter and gossip for dinner. And that, my friends, is where the hype and controversy came to be. Rumors from Facebook posts and youth pastor tweets. Rumors from hushed coffeeshop chats and pulpits. Because the Tebow family are active and vocal Christians, most conservatives assumed the commercial would showcase their faith. Most liberals took offense, praying to God or something else that they wouldn’t be granted a commercial during one of the highest-rated broadcasts on television, an offense that started a frenzy of its own. Conservatives then took offense to the liberals' offense, and began to worry that everything would be censored in this world of Sarah Palin’s liberal media elite.

Like most other major networks, CBS has a policy prohibiting advocacy ads, regardless of how explicit or implicit they may be. With that in mind, commercials advocating for anti-abortion policies or equal rights for homosexuals would never have aired during the broadcast. Superbowl night came, and the commercial came. It was a gentle, non-threatening ad “celebrating family, celebrating life”, just like a few level-headed reporters (and Focus on the Family, for that matter) said it would be. The commercial served as a vignette for Focus on the Family, meaning that if you saw that commercial and/or if you knew their story and found it to be inspirational, then Focus on the Family is a resource that aligns very closely with not only the Tebow family, but yours as well. It was an advertisement (an expensive one, too: estimates for a 30-second spot on the Superbowl were $2.7 million) for Focus on the Family, and not meant to be a platform to take sides on a sensitive issue. The story is already public, why would they pay $3 million dollars to tell it to you in thirty seconds?

I and nine other people around the world emerged from the Superbowl having seen the Tim Tebow commercial we had expected to see – a non-controversial ad pointing people in the direction of Focus on the Family. After the broadcast, I’m sure that thousands of people went to Focus on the Family, read up on the inspirational story of Tim Tebow, and probably browsed around the website a bit. Now, the morning after, most people are stunned that it was too soft, or that it was much ado about nothing. And so, readers of my blog, I urge you: before you get in the throngs of a heated argument that has anything to do with faith, policy or commercials, perform your civic duty and do your homework.

Yahoo! Article

Focus on the Family Press Release

NESN.com Article

MediaPost Article