No one has seen the ad yet it is already labeled as “hate”.

Focus on the Family has received approval from CBS to air an ad during this year’s Super Bowl which delivers a pro-life message. The ad features one famous face and his mother.

The back story is this: Pam Tebow and her husband were working as Christian missionaries in the Philippines in 1987. Pam became pregnant. Doctors at that time advised Pam to abort her child due to health reasons. She did not. She had a son, Heisman Trophy winning former Florida Gators football quarterback, Tim Tebow. This is the story that apparently Pam and Tim Tebow relate in the pro-life ad slated to run during the Super Bowl.

I say “apparently” because despite abortion group accusations that the ad is “un-American” and has a message of “hate”, no one has seen the ad yet.

Erin Matson, VP of N.O.W., says she objects to the airing of the ad because CBS (the television network carrying the Super Bowl) has a longstanding policy against airing controversial ads during the big game.

Ms. Matson says, “The abortion debate has no place in the Super Bowl. I organize abortion rights rallies all the time and I recognize how inappropriate it would be for me to sit in the stands with signs at the Super Bowl.”

I agree with Ms. Matson. That would be inappropriate. It would also be inappropriate for pro-life groups to sit in the stands with signs at the Super Bowl. However, the topic at hand is an ad on television, not someone holding a sign in the stands.

N.O.W. and other pro-abortion groups have written to CBS and urged the network to reject the ad. CBS executives have seen the script for the ad and are standing by their decision to air it.

“Our standards and practices process continues to adhere to a policy that ensures all ads on all sides of an issue are appropriate for air,” a CBS statement read.

The ad featuring the Tebow’s is produced and paid for (at prices averaging around $1.2 million per :30 second ad) by Focus on The Family.

Pro-Abortion group ChoiceUSA spokesperson Kierra Johnson called Focus on the Family an “Anti-American” and “Anti-Woman” group. She said the Focus on the Family ad featuring Tim Tebow and his Mom had an “un-American” message of “hate” that has no place in the Super Bowl. Again, Ms. Johnson has not seen so much as one second of the ad.

In many Christian circles, Focus on the Family is very well known. If you’re not familiar with the group founded by the Rev. James Dobson, here is how they describe themselves.

“Focus on the Family is a global non-profit Christian organization with a vision for healing brokenness in families, communities and societies worldwide through Christ. The purpose of the ministry is to strengthen, defend and celebrate the institution of the traditional family and to highlight the unique and irreplaceable role that it plays in God’s larger story of redemption.”

I can’t find a single “Anti-American”, “Anti-Woman”, “un-American” or hate-filled thought, ideal or word in any of that description.
Ms. Johnson also said that Focus on the Family was basically trying to pull a fast one by getting an ad in the Super Bowl that delivered a “one-sided” message.

I ask anyone who has ever watched a Super Bowl, or television in general for that matter, to please cite for me one single instance ever in the annals of advertising where an ad did not have a “one-sided” message.

“One-sided” message is the epitome of the definition of all advertising.
Will the Budweiser ads aired during the Super Bowl mention that Miller Beer is awesome, too.  Will “Go Daddy” ads point out that there are a myriad of ways to acquire and register a URL and that many are cheaper than “Go Daddy”? Will Apple list the best attributes of the PC? You get the gist.

Let’s go back to the “H” word.

Abortion groups are calling Focus on the Family, and the ad, and by extension, Pam and Tim Tebow, purveyors of hate.

“HATE”.

Have we dramatically changed the meaning of that word in our culture, or is it that we have so diluted the meaning of words that we now feel free to attach the most horrific words to anything with which we simply disagree?

Abortion is a volatile subject. Emotions run deep. It is literally a subject of life and death which echoes into eternity.

Even taking those visceral reactions into account, even considering the lifelong pain involved in the struggle between abortion and life, when did any opposition to abortion become hate speech? 

When did we come to this awful place in our society and culture where an opposing viewpoint is automatically categorized as hate? According to this new way of conducting ourselves, if two people disagree then one, or perhaps both people, must therefore be involved in an expression of hate.

Or is it that only one of those two people carries the label of “Hate-monger”?  And if it’s only one of the two, then who decides who is the hater?  Does the majority decide?  If anyone then puts voice to dissension, are they automatically peddling hate?  That's a slippery slope along which we are already sliding at break neck speed.

Here’s the deal. If disagreement now equates to hate, then we’re all hate mongers. No one individual agrees with every other individual all the time on every subject. So, if to disagree is to hate, then we are all haters.

According to groups like N.O.W. and ChoiceUSA, Focus on the Family is spreading “HATE” in defense of life.  Yet no one has seen the content of the ad and no one knows the specifics of the ad’s message. They only know that the ad is pro-life.

Society accepts abortion. The U.S. Supreme Court has stamped the act with its seal of approval.  So, to be the voice speaking out in support of life is now to be the voice of hate.

If defending the life of the unborn is now “hate”, then conversely we must assume that killing a baby in the womb is now “love”? Is that the message emanating from organizations like ChoiceUSA who make their money off of the death of millions of innocents?  These are the people who have successfully changed the vernacular of the debate.  We no longer have abortionists, we now have abortion "providers".

Here’s a question to weigh. Why do the people at N.O.W., ChoiceUSA and abortion clinics all over the country fear the message of life?  Even a message they haven’t even heard yet.

And another question, why does our country, which was founded on the courage of dissent, now so fear anything not considered mainstream, or going with the flow?