Losing my patience with the Tebow-bashing

Patience is a supposed to be a virtue, but I am beginning to lose my patience with the continual bashing of those who stand for the Christian world view.

Namely Tim Tebow.

Since I posted to my blog two weeks ago – sorry for the delay in coming back, by the way – the Super Bowl, along with a commercial starring Tim Tebow and his mother, have come and gone.
Too bad that those who hold a dissenting viewpoint can't do the same.

I am sure you have seen the commercial, either when it aired early in Sunday's game or by going to www.focusonthefamily.org to take a look.

For all of the Tebow-bashing, this commercial was very benign. Pam Tebow just told a little bit of the story until her son, a Heisman Trophy winner at the University of Florida, tackled her in a light moment.

“Still worried about me, Mom?” he said.

I might interject, I have stood within a few feet of Tebow while working the sideline of a Kentucky-Florida game at Commonwealth Stadium. Let's just say he is one big hombre.

Pam Tebow laughingly told her big boy to stop because she was trying to tell their story. It was obviously an invitation to go the Focus on the Family website where there is an interview, lasting approximately eight minutes, with Bob and Pam Tebow, who rejected advice to abort the baby that eventually became one of the greatest college football players in history. The message was simply to celebrate the family and is obviously pro-life.

It apparently worked as the ministry's website had over 760,000 hits and had Focus on the Family president Jim Daly joking with USA Today that the website was crashing.

But after the ad ran, the response by National Organization for Women president Terry O'Neill was so ridiculous I had to read it several times to make sure my eyes were not failing me.

She was quoted in the Los Angeles Times, "I am blown away at the celebration of the violence against women in it. That's what comes across to me even more strongly than the anti-abortion message. I myself am a survivor of domestic violence, and I don't find it charming. I think CBS should be ashamed of itself."

You have GOT to be kidding me.

As many have pointed out, there was no outcry when 88-year old Betty White was tackled in an earlier commercial. I guess the Golden Girls are held to a different standard.

My feeling is that the Focus on the Family ad really was aired with the intention of getting people to celebrate the family, which has become widely fractured in these times. And, of course, there was a distinctly pro-life message in the ad, which I am sure that Focus on the Family wanted.
But an second result of the ad has been to show just how ridiculous the “pro-choice” advocates have become. As Sally Jenkins pointed out in The Washington Post, those people preach tolerance, but are actually the intolerant ones here.

I might add that I never thought The Washington Post would be one of the Tebow allies. To read the entire column by Jenkins, check it out at this address.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/01/AR2010020102067.html

Thank you Tebows for standing for what is right and speaking a positive message.

Then there is the issue of the NCAA considering a ban on eye-black messages. Surely you have seen how Tebow would put a Bible verse on his eye black. Sometimes it was John 3:16. He had Ephesians 2:8-10 written several times, along with other verses of scripture. I never heard Tebow quoting scripture or proselytizing someone. These were just simple invitations to go check out the Bible verses.

Yet the NCAA is looking at banning the practice. By waiting, the powers that be undoubtedly realized how much of an outcry would have arisen if enacted during the immensely popular Tebow's career. Still, I can't understand why there is an outcry of someone sharing a verse of Scripture.

If someone wants to look it up in the Bible, that's great. If someone doesn't want to look, that is his choice.

What it really boils down to is that many simply want to remove all references to God in our society. That is an incredibly simple critique of the situation but, it really is the bottom line.

And we wonder why our country is in the mess it is in.

We can all learn from Tim Tebow

The Tim Tebow-bashing has gone too far.

Gripe about his ability on the football field, if you want. If you are like me, it has likely been after he has torched your team again.

You can even poke fun at the fact that he cried after the Florida Gators lost in the SEC championship game. Of course, the people making fun did so out of jealousy because of the aforementioned point.

(I might interject that in 25 years of writing I have found that if you show me someone that sheds tears after losing a big game, I will show you someone that loses very few of them. But I digress.)

Talk about how he's not the prototype NFL quarterback, too. That's fair when you are talking about anyone that is playing a sport at the highest level.

But the latest round of attacks has crossed the line of questionable into the realm of the idiotic.
Tebow's crime? He's a Christian. And he's not afraid to speak up about it. You've seen countless photos of Tebow wearing his eye-black with a Bible verse inscribed.

And, unless you have been exiled to the outer reaches of the Yukon recently, you know that a firestorm has emerged about the story of how Tebow's mom, Pam, became seriously ill and was advised to terminate her fifth pregnancy. She refused to have the abortion and gave birth to a son who would go on to become one of the greatest college football players ever.

The story is going to be told during a Super Bowl commercial paid for by Focus on the Family.
Of course the National Organization for Women has begun howling in protest.

"This ad is frankly offensive, " Erin Matson, the Action Vice President of the National Organization for Women, was quoted as saying. "It is hate masquerading as love. It sends a message that abortion is always a mistake."

Let's see if I get this right. The story of a woman carrying her child to birth is a story of hate?
You have to wonder how low someone can go to make a ridiculous statement like that. Also, the commercial has not been aired. How does Matson know it is a “message of hate?"

Unless, of course, a “message of hate” is one that differs from the NOW's agenda.

Then there was the over-hyped Jay Mariotti's ridiculous rant on Fanhouse.

He said that this year we get to see commercials about “a smart-aleck baby,” and “Danica Patrick dressed as Marilyn Monroe” among other things.

He then decries the Focus on the Family commercial.

“There is a time and a place for serious crusades about life issues. A commercial during the NFL's championship game, our national holiday of fun and frolic and heavy drinking and heavier gambling, is not one of them. We're all impressed by the fascinating story of Pam Tebow, who was advised by a doctor in the Philippines to have an abortion in 1987 because of a life-threatening illness. She had the baby anyway during a mission trip, and, wonders be, her son grew up to become a Heisman Trophy winner, a two-time national football champion and one of the most inspirational collegiate athletes ever. But just as you don't have a Boy Scout convention in a casino, you do not take sides on a volatile issue -- pro-life -- during the Super Bowl,” he wrote.

Huh?

You give up who you are for a few hours of football? Because Jay Mariotti and those like him don't like the message?

(If you want to read Mariotti's column, here is the link: http://jay-mariotti.fanhouse.com/2010/01/27/super-bowl-no-place-for-tebows-views/#comments

As you can tell, I agree with Tebow's stance. The death of over a million babies a year in the name of “choice” is the greatest tragedy of our time.

And I admire Tim Tebow for taking a stand.

I noted that Mariotti had no problem with “Cheap Trick helping Audi with a cute environmental theme.”

What is the difference of taking an environmental theme and telling a pro-family story?

Tebow is within his right to say what is dear to his heart. If someone doesn't like it, he or she can turn the TV off during the commercial.

Tebow is living his life as he believes God wants him to do and does not answer to organizations like NOW or politically-correct writers who don't like the Christian message.

I wish all of us had the same backbone as Tim Tebow.

Our country would be a much better place.