Real Catholic Blog

I just received this e-mail from our friends at CatholicVote.org. Last week, its president, Brian Burch, asked people to sign a petition to back up CBS’ decision to air an pro-life ad during this Sunday’s Super Bowl, featuring star college quarterback Tim Tebow and his mom, who was urged to abort him 20-plus years ago. Big money pro-abortion groups have pressured CBS to pull the ad, so CatholicVote.org stepped in as a counter balance. We hope you signed on. Here’s Brian’s update:

Dear CatholicVote Member,

The President of CBS received a surprise at 9:53 a.m. yesterday.

A large Fed Ex box filled with nearly 500 pages of signatures from over 50,000 friends of CatholicVote arrived at the office of CBS President Leslie Moonves.

Enclosed in the package was a personal letter thanking CBS for standing firm and agreeing to air the ad produced by Focus on the Family featuring Florida football star Tim Tebow and his mother.

I explained that CatholicVote was especially interested in their decision because of our own efforts last year. With your help last January, we pushed hard to have our ad featuring President Obama aired during the Super Bowl.

NBC ultimately rejected the ad, yet I remain enormously proud of what we did together. We stood firm for the principle that every human life matters. We proudly stepped forward to tell the world that every human life is a gift — including the lives of those with whom we may disagree.

We had 2 million people watch our ad on YouTube over the past 12 months, while also sparking a healthy discussion in the media and on the Internet. And the ad was mentioned repeatedly again this year as controversy over the Tebow ad was discussed.

Did we help pave the way for this year’s Tebow ad to be aired? Who knows? What really matters is that we are winning.

Focus on the Family has taken the lead in making a Super Bowl ad a reality for an estimated 400 million people around the world. They deserve our heartfelt thanks.

I know when I see the ad this Sunday, my heart will swell with pride. This ad is not merely a story about Pam Tebow and her son, but also a statement about being pro-life in America.

We aren’t outsiders. We are mainstream, proud, and inspiring the rest of America with what we believe.

And more people every day are coming to see what we see: Life is indeed beautiful.

Be sure to catch Thomas Peters on Fox News tonight. Enjoy the Super Bowl. See you next week.

Sincerely,

Brian Burch, President

CatholicVote.org

P.S. Send us your prediction on the score for the Super Bowl. Pick the winner and the score. Whoever is closest will receive a surprise gift next week and get a shout out at our legislative arm, CatholicVoteAction.org. (Our combined sites receive 15,000 visitors every day!)

Here is an appeal from Brian Burch and Thomas Peters of CatholicVote.org and American Papist, two of the leading traditional Catholic leaders in America — and refreshingly young, too. It’s about pressure CBS now is receiving from pro-abortion groups to pull the pro-life Super Bowl ad from Focus on the Family that stars Heisman Award winning quarterback Tim Tebow and his mom, who refused to have an abortion when she was pregnant with him, despite advice to do so.

The pair encourage us to counter the pro-abortion pressure with encouragment to CBS to stick their guns. After all, what a great change of pace from one of the mainstays of the Mainstream (secularist) Media — to air a pro-life Super Bowl ad!

Dear CatholicVote Member,

Last year we fought hard to have our “Life: Imagine the Potential” ad shown during the Super Bowl. After several days of negotiations, NBC rejected the ad.

This year Focus on the Family has had success with a different network, as CBS is poised to show their own ad celebrating the accomplishments of college football star Tim Tebow next Sunday.

In 1985, Tebow’s mother Pam was advised to abort her child. She decided against it citing her Christian faith as a source of hope that her son would be ok. Her son, Tim Tebow, won the Heisman Trophy in 2007.

While the ad has been approved, pro-abortion groups are now urging CBS to censor the Super Bowl ad!

Sign our group letter to CBS. Tell them not to give in to pressure and show the ad!

And tell your friends to visit http://www.CatholicVote.org to join us!

It still amazes us how vicious pro-abortion advocates can be, especially when they don’t get their way, or sense that their “cause” is being threatened in a serious way.

For all their talk about respect of mothers, of choice, and of differences of opinions, none of those things apply to actual pro-life people. Or in this case, the mother of Tim Tebow.

Here is just one example. It’s important for us to read this and realize the level of anger we are facing. This from Tommy Craggs at DeadSpin:

“I’m guessing the Tebows’ ad, for spanky Jim Dobson’s Focus on the Family, will extol the glories of family and motherhood and the value of children and other seemingly innocuous fare; it will also be 30 seconds of anti-abortion dog-whistling to the Christian right on a frequency somewhere beyond the range of only CBS executives. The moral, implicit or otherwise, will be: don’t terminate your pregnancy; that blastocyst might turn into Tim Tebow.

“… But the Tebows’ message should be called for what it is, and what it is is outright quackery that doesn’t differ appreciably from my going on television with a toy stethoscope and urging America to start treating itself with leeches.”

Breathtaking, isn’t it?

And this sort of vitriol is not even limited to individuals. As Matt Archibold points out, the Center for Reproductive Rights, in a letter to CBS, is flat-out claiming Tebow’s mom is a liar!

The wider audience however — those who are not passionately pro-life or pro-abortion — are seeing both sides of this issue for who they are, and that’s always a good thing for pro-lifers.

Here at CatholicVote, we believe in supporting Tim Tebow, the brave choice of his mother, and the smart decision made by the CBS executives.

Please click here to tell CBS you support their decision to air the Tim Tebow Commercial (and tell your friends, too!)

Sincerely,

Brian Burch and Thomas Peters,

CatholicVote.org

P.S. The fact that we are talking about a successful pro-life ad airing during the Super Bowl speaks volumes about our movement. We are growing more confident and more effective every day. Anyone involved in efforts to affirm the dignity of human life should feel proud next Sunday when this ad is broadcast to hundreds of millions around the world.