CBS has been sharply criticized over the past week for agreeing to air an anti-abortion ad starring Florida Gators football star Tim Tebow. The commercial, paid for by Focus on the Family, features Tim Tebow and his mother discussing the stressful circumstances surrounding his birth. Pam Tebow became severely ill with amoebic dysentery while pregnant with Tim and was advised by doctors to abort the fetus. Obviously, she refused, and as a result we can watch Tim Tebow play football today.

The underlying message of the ad is pretty clear: ”If you abort your child, you may be depriving the world of a good-looking, all-American, future Heisman Trophy winner!”

Though news of the commercial is offending pro-choice viewers, the ad itself is not objectively reprehensible. There are no pictures of aborted fetuses or any of the other scare tactics often featured in anti-abortion propaganda. There does not appear to be any explicit condemnation of those who choose to have an abortion. Though it is not entirely logically sound (after all, one could just as easily say that by aborting an unwanted child you could possibly save the world from the next Charles Manson), overall there is nothing in the ad that wouldn’t be protected by freedom of speech.

If the content of this commercial was the only issue, arguing that CBS should not air it would be difficult, regardless of your feelings towards abortion. But, as is often the case, this issue runs much deeper than a single Super Bowl ad.

First of all, the integrity of the ad is compromised by the fact that it fails to disclose that abortion was illegal in the Phillippines, where the Tebows were living as missionaries, at the time of Tim’s birth. Additionally, while the decision not to abort apparently worked out well for the Tebows, the same decision has resulted in death for other women and babies.

Most troubling for CBS, however, is the fact that in 2004, the network refused to run an ad created by the United Church of Christ which essentially welcomed all people, gay and straight, to their churches. This makes CBS’ decision to show the anti-abortion ad seem hypocritical, to say the least. The United Church of Christ is, understandably, angry and perplexed by the decision.

CBS has responded by arguing that in recent months “it has run more issue-oriented advertising, such as ones for health care.” The network also says that it is willing to consider airing other “responsibly produced advocacy ads” during Sunday’s broadcast. This seems like a fair enough argument, if it were accurate.

But apparently CBS chose not to air an ad for a gay dating Web site, ManCrunch, during this year’s Super Bowl. The ad “shows two football fans touching hands over a bowl of potato chips, which then leads, as the ad implies, to a make-out session.” Sure, this ad contains more sexual innuendo than the Tebow ad, but that hasn’t prevented Super Bowl ads from being aired in the past (for specific examples, see any Go Daddy commercial).

In fact, it would make more sense for the Tebow ad to be rejected than the ManCrunch ad. The whole point of the Tebow ad is to deliver a political message. It’s essentially conservative propaganda. The Tebows would love nothing more than to change a viewer’s position on abortion. The ManCrunch ad, on the other hand, is only politically controversial because our society has turned anything remotely related to homosexuality into some kind of political statement. The ad isn’t advocating gay marriage or promoting a homosexual lifestyle, and it’s certainly no more provocative than the eHarmony ad during which a man asks his girlfriend to promise never to wear clothes to bed.

So what is CBS trying to say? Is sexual innuendo in Super Bowl ads only acceptable if it’s between heterosexuals? Is the Tebow ad acceptable because it’s intended to “celebrate family, celebrate life“? If CBS wants to grant the Tebows and Focus on the Family the right to speak freely about issues that matter to them, they should extend that right to all organizations or face continued accusations of hypocrisy. Needless to say, CBS has a lot of explaining to do. —Shea Connelly