The Economist is furious that the Tebow ad got air time and Man Crunch didn’t…what do you think, was this justifiable discrimination?
Tebow VS Man Crunch
– February 8, 2010
The Economist is furious that the Tebow ad got air time and Man Crunch didn’t…what do you think, was this justifiable discrimination?
About the Author
David R. Dunham (Co-Founder) is a pastor, blogger, and avid fan of pop-culture. He has long been interested in the arts. He received honors for acting throughout high school and college, even being given a scholarship for musical theater to Youngstown State University. He is also an amateur musician, with one album, Get Well Soon, released in 2004. David has a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature and in Pre-Theology from Ohio University, and a Masters of Divinity from The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. He currently teaches English Composition at Shawnee State University and serves as a staff pastor at Christ's Community Church. David and his wife Krista have two children, and they currently live in Portsmouth, OH. 
I wish I had seen this article before the Super Bowl aired. I would have added it as an example to the post I wrote this morning on my blog. To be fair, R.L.G. did post an update admitting that the Tebow commercial was nothing to get upset about.
But there are bigger issues here. CBS is a publicly held company, but they are not a government entity. Therefore, as far as I know, CBS isn’t beholden to any viewpoint except the one it wishes to promote. If CBS decided that a commercial for a gay dating site wasn’t appropriate for a prime time Super Bowl audience, that is its decision. If people don’t like that, then they are perfectly free to boycott CBS or organize people and capital to buy ownership of CBS and do whatever they like with the company.
As far as whether or not this was justifiable discrimination… I don’t think it was discrimination at all. CBS is a business. I’m sure the executives there took a long hard look at the demographics that watch CBS the most and made a business decision based on how their key demographics would react to the Man Crunch ad. In the end, it’s pretty clear they felt like the money they would lose in advertising revenue would far outweigh the money received from Man Crunch for airing the ad.
We (the American public) need to be very careful about throwing words like discrimination around when this was far more likely a simple business decision.
Ah, non-controversial controversy.
The Man-Crunch people were given an opportunity to work with CBS on slight edits to get their ad aired, but weren’t interested. There was never any intent to get the ad on the air — what they wanted was the free press from the “controversy.”
As a giggle, according to the poorly worded R.L.G. commentary, abortion rights groups aren’t furious at the ad, they are furious that Mr. Tebow’s mother had a healthy son. “Doctors, fearing for her health, counselled abortion. Insead, Ms Tebow will say, she prayed, and her superstar son was born healthy. Abortion-rights groups are furious.”
Okay, not what R.L.G. meant to say — unless we go all Freudian slip on him/her.
^^^^What Joseph said.