CBS Says Yes to Life, No to Gay Dating

Flickr/<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/kyleandkelly/">Kyle and Kelly Adams</a> (<a href="http://www.creativecommons.org" target="_blank">Creative Commons</a>).

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


A bit of drama over at CBS, where the television network, after approving an anti-abortion Super Bowl ad sponsored by Focus on the Family, found itself in the awkward position of having to review an ad from ManCrunch, a gay online dating site. CBS ultimately rejected the ManCrunch ad, and a number of bloggers on the left are calling it everything from blatant discrimination to reasonably nixing a lame ad that was never worth fighting for anyway. (See AtlanticWire for a good round-up.)
 
For the record, the Focus on the Family ad shows that not having an abortion significantly increases your chances of having a famous football player for a son, and the ManCrunch ad shows that even if you’re two straight-ish-looking commercial actors, an accidental brushing of hands in the chip bowl raises your chances of experiencing a spontaneous man-on-man make out session. 

 

 
Meanwhile, Liliana Segura at AlterNet wonders whether NFL quarterback Tim Tebow’s birth story, which provides the juicy material for the Focus on the Family ad, is even true.
 
Interesting to note that Focus on the Family recently hired 27-year-old Esther Fleece to bring Twitter-savvy millenials—who, according to Fleece, find some of their older predecessors’ anti-gay rhetoric alienating—into the conservative Christian fold. To read more about Fleece, be sure to check out Stephanie Mencimer’s excellent article in the most recent issue of Mother Jones. Also see Tim Murphy’s post on the ongoing rift at Focus on the Family.
 

 

WE'LL BE BLUNT:

We need to start raising significantly more in donations from our online community of readers, especially from those who read Mother Jones regularly but have never decided to pitch in because you figured others always will. We also need long-time and new donors, everyone, to keep showing up for us.

In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

Please learn more about how Mother Jones works and our 47-year history of doing nonprofit journalism that you don't find elsewhere—and help us do it with a donation if you can. We've already cut expenses and hitting our online goal is critical right now.

payment methods

WE'LL BE BLUNT

We need to start raising significantly more in donations from our online community of readers, especially from those who read Mother Jones regularly but have never decided to pitch in because you figured others always will. We also need long-time and new donors, everyone, to keep showing up for us.

In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

Please learn more about how Mother Jones works and our 47-year history of doing nonprofit journalism that you don't elsewhere—and help us do it with a donation if you can. We've already cut expenses and hitting our online goal is critical right now.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate