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Pro-choice should mean letting CBS choose
Q: The conservative Christian group Focus on the Family is sponsoring a pro-life ad, featuring football star Tim Tebow, during Sunday's Super Bowl. Should CBS show the ad? Should CBS allow other faith-based groups to buy Super Bowl ads promoting their beliefs on social issues? Is a major sporting event, or a TV ad campaign, an appropriate venue for discussing such vital and divisive culture-war issues like abortion?
There are two basic reasons why companies and organizations advertise. One is to sell products and the other is to sell ideas. CBS is a private company, and it should have the right to let anyone it wishes purchase its advertising time, provided that which is aired is within the guidelines and rules that the FCC has established for companies using public airwaves. There is nothing in these rules that restrict or prohibit ads by religious or any other organizations, provided they are not promoting certain lotteries, tobacco products, or contain obscenity, indecency, or profane language. Because it is a private company in business to make a profit, CBS will most likely not air ads it considers offensive to the majority of its viewing audience. That would not be a smart business decision. Those who do not like the message in the Tim Tebow ad can easily change the station, turn off the sound, or go to kitchen for a few minutes. I don't think anyone is going to be forced to watch either the Super Bowl or its ads.
The main problem here is that an increasing number of us cannot stomach hearing the opinions of people with whom we disagree, especially if their ideas are religiously motivated. Although I am not a Christian and find myself in stark disagreement with many of their religiously conservative views, I am also a strong supporter of freedom of speech. Religious views, popular or not, have as much right to be aired and expressed as any other views provided they are not being funded by the government and they are not openly encouraging violence. They should not be kept out of the public arena simply because some people do not like them. Moreover, a pro-life view is held by many who are not religious at all, in the same way that a pro-choice view is held by many who are religious.
Compare the commercial in question to one that MoveOn.org is about to run in several states against senators who voted for a resolution restricting Environmental Protection Agency regulations of greenhouse gases. The ad shows a variety of people holding cigarettes as if they are smoking, including members of a little league team, a mother giving birth, and another with an infant (who is also holding a cigarette). I am sure the ad will be unsettling for some people, but I doubt that anyone, especially those who are against the Tebow commercial, will try to block its airing, nor should they. Like Focus on the Family, MoveOn.org is an organization with a social and political agenda. I have only heard about the Tebow piece, which carries a message that many disagree with but apparently does not contain offensive images or content. At the same time, I have seen MoveOn.org's commercial, and it could well be more unsettling to some than a woman talking about her decision to keep her pregnancy and about the son she now has and loves.
I believe both ads should be aired, because we need more discussion of controversial and divisive issues, not less. Sometimes we need to be made uncomfortable with our existing views of the world and with our prejudices. We have become divided as a society precisely because far too many of us refuse to consider or even listen seriously to other points of view. We are convinced that our narrow-minded approach to so many issues is simply the "correct way" and in need of no further discussion. Liberals and conservatives are not much different in this regards. If we could actually begin a calm and reasoned dialog with those who think differently and stop using scare tactics to try to suppress their views, we might actually find something upon which we could agree. But that can never happen if we attempt to silence alternate beliefs and opinions.
The ultimate victims of the suppression of free speech are minorities and minority view points. Restricted speech rarely hurts those in the majority or those in power, since they are the ones who tend to who have the greatest influence over the media and its content. . . and they make the laws. Free speech is integral to a free society. Thus, I think the title of Sally Jenkins recent Washington Post article sums it up well: "Tebow's Super Bowl ad isn't intolerant; its critics are."
By
Ramdas Lamb
|
February 2, 2010; 2:21 AM ET
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Posted by: tarle_subba | February 4, 2010 8:12 PM
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How do you limit speech by context? Who would decide this? I think that limiting the airing of a pro-life commercial just because it is on during the superbowl when the company has rightfully paid for the commericial is not only unfair, but a dangerous precedent. What if I like Pepsi better than Coke, therefore I don't like Coke commercials...Coke should not be allowed to play at the superbowl. My point is that the purpose of an ad is to present ideas. It is up to the viewer to watch the ad (they can switch the channel) or buy into the idea. There is no way to limit ads by "context" in a fair way. It just isn't possible. Everyone should be able to place an ad as long as it is done legally (i.e. the ad is paid for, it is not lewd...etc). Just because people don't like the product/message shouldn't affect the streaming of a legal ad.
Posted by: cassie123 | February 4, 2010 1:06 PM
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Ramdasji,
I disagree, simply because of the context in which this advertisement appears -- a sports spectacle. What will we next have -- political candidates buying superbowl ad time? There are various other programming contexts in which the Tebox ad would be fine, but not in this one. We have far too much conflict in this nation, and the airing of more such is not necessarily conducive to either thoughtful exchanges or persuasion. Instead, such ads will merely add to the friction and conflict. Sure, under free speech rights, what you argue is fine, but that is an absolutist position that really has not contributed to the well-being of society. More is not always better, for that is a logical as well as a material fallacy. Just my two cents...
Posted by: tarle_subba | February 4, 2010 10:11 AM
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Thoughtful and well written, thank you.
Posted by: job22 | February 4, 2010 8:46 AM
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CBS has chosen - to run the "pro-life ad by obscenely rich Huckabee religions who look the other way at captial punishment and pre-emptive war as if their small and shallow god hired K Street lawyers to write disclaimers to except these from their Sixth Commandment.
CBS has also chosen to deny an ad for a gay dating service. They are using publically licensed airways used by their affiliates to deny free speech for this ad and no one is alarmed.
Theocratic American hypocrisy at its best with a touch of Alito's new power to big corporations to influence what should only be a political issue under the First Amendment.
The final touchdown, to use Daily's analogy, in establishing a radical extremist right-wing dictatorship will be played out by conglomerates against mega-religions, both vying for total control.
Posted by: coloradodog | February 3, 2010 1:36 PM
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CBS has chosen. They've chosen to support the cause of criminalizing abortion. From "The Daily Beast":
Focus on the Family, the Colorado Springs-based conservative Christian group founded by Dr. James Dobson, says that it has actually been working closely with CBS executives for months on the ad's script.
There were discussions about the specific wording of the spot," said Gary Schneeberger, spokesperson for Focus on the Family. "And we came to a compromise. To an agreement." Schneeberger declined to comment on exactly how CBS changed the ad's message.
CBS has said that in the last year, in an acknowledgment of "industry norms," it loosened previous restrictions on advocacy advertisements, accepting ads that pushed for health reform and environmental activism.
We've worked with [CBS] almost since the beginning," Schneeberger added. "Our senior vice presidents talked to CBS executives throughout the process. It was a very cordial, very professional, fruitful relationship."
http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-02-02/the-making-of-cbss-pro-life-ad/full/
Posted by: Athena4 | February 3, 2010 12:56 PM
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I appreciate this article and must say I agree.
Posted by: cassie123 | February 2, 2010 1:41 PM
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The comments to this entry are closed.
Of course it is the programming and ad managers who decide all commercials for all channels and for all kinds of programming. However, by FCC regulation, there are different rules for ads broadcast on children's programming. One need not go the children's programming route on the matter of sports broadcasts but surely ad managers can decide about what kinds of ads are appropriate for such contexts.
I believe the example of Coke and Pepsi here is not the right example at all. Appropriate examples would be -- gun control, gays in the military, capital punishment, whose God is more powerful (!), and every other kind of social issue that has riven this country for decades now. There is enough of such debates in every social avenue, in every classroom, and in every political campaign, and a million other programming contexts; why would I like to see such arguments either at the U.S. Open Tennis tournament, or the Superbowl, or at the Masters just because a whole bunch of political and social activists think that this is how they will get the biggest bang for their proselytizing buck? The argument that Ramdasji proffers is a kind of "fundamentalist" free speech argument which, I believe, will not lead to education, civic engagement, and information but the commercialization of social conflict. Welcome to yet another American crass innovation!