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.
