The Computer Wore Menace Shoes

"If I give them money ... then I can also have a commercial, too? I don't get it."

New York-based Women’s Media Center, with backing from the National Organization for Women and other groups, asked CBS to pull a 30-second Super Bowl commercial featuring Tim Tebow and his mother because it is likely to contain a pro-life message.

Focus on the Family ponied up the $2.5 million to $2.8 million thanks to some “generous friends,” according to spokesman Gary Schneeberger. The commercial is expected to tell the story of Tebow’s mother’s decision not to have a medically recommended abortion while pregnant with her fifth child, now a Heisman trophy winner. (Unofficial tag line: Pro-life, for pro sports!)

“An ad that uses sports to divide rather than to unite has no place in the biggest national sports event of the year – an event designed to bring Americans together,” said Jemhu Greene, WMC president.

The organization’s letter strongly suggested CBS distance itself from the conservative Christian group.

“By offering one of the most coveted advertising spots of the year to an anti-equality, anti-choice, homophobic organization, CBS is aligning itself with a political stance that will damage its reputation, alienate viewers, and discourage consumers from supporting its shows and advertisers,” the letter said.

There’s an easy solution here: the coalition of women’s groups can put up $2.5 million to $2.8 million for its own Super Bowl commercial. It’s easy to rail against CBS for aligning itself with a certain ideology, but capitalism is the great equalizer here. Give CBS enough money and an ad that passes standards, and the network executives will put it on the air. Heck, give them more money and they’ll probably give you more airtime.

Airing competing commercials isn’t a new idea. Besides the Saints versus the Colts, Super Bowl XLIV will host a multitude of battles. Coke versus Pepsi. Budweiser versus Miller. A battle royale involving Ford, Chevy, Toyota and Honda.

The women’s coalition needs to quit crying foul and realize there is a better way to go about this. Adding pro-life versus pro-choice to the slate of Super Bowl ads won’t be the most comfortable reality for Americans, but it beats pretending business operates on an ideological scale rather than a monetary one.

Dr. George Tiller, one of the nation's few late-term abortion providers, was murdered in his church May 31. The killer, Scott Roeder, is facing a first-degree murder charge after a Kansas judge rejected his attorneys' "necessity defense."

A Kansas judge ruled Tuesday that attorneys for 51-year-old confessed killer Scott Roeder cannot use a “necessity defense” in his first-degree murder trial. Roeder shot and killed Dr. George Tiller, one of the nation’s few late-term abortion providers, in the back of Tiller’s church May 31.

Roeder confessed to the crime Nov. 9 but has pleaded not guilty, arguing the murder was necessary to save “unborn children.”

Legally, Judge Warren Wilbert made the correct decision in this case. A 1993 precedent from the Kansas supreme court said using personal beliefs to justify criminal activity to stop a law-abiding citizen from exercising his or her rights “would be tantamount to sanctioning anarchy.”

Regardless of your moral viewpoint on abortion, it is legal in the United States, which means doctors are allowed to perform it and women shouldn’t be hassled if they try to procure one. (In fact, nearly all medical school students in this survey find it an appropriate part of their curriculum.)

Besides, if you’re going to green light the killing of abortion providers, there are some other moral limits you’ve brushed aside in the process. “Thou shalt not kill” didn’t come with exceptions for people who don’t agree with you.

If Roeder’s attorneys can’t use the necessity defense, maybe they should try the insanity one. Roeder is so convinced he has done something righteous that he told the Associated Press he had no regrets for killing Tiller and wouldn’t say if he would do it again if acquitted. You would hope a normal person would at least show the slightest hint of remorse, but the complete absence of it in Roeder makes it seem likely he would do it again if given the chance.

And if you still think that Tiller was the monster in this story, read what his friend Dr. LeRoy Carhart had to say just weeks later in Newsweek. Carhart obviously isn’t the deranged mad scientist pro-life activists would paint him and his colleagues as. That doesn’t leave many options as to who’s working on questionable morality.

The Rev. Jay Scott Newman of St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Greenville, S.C., decided parishioners who voted for Barack Obama sinned and should not receive communion until doing penance.

“Voting for a pro-abortion politician when a plausible pro-life alternative exits constitutes material cooperation with intrinsic evil, and those Catholics who do so place themselves outside of the full communion of Christ’s Church and under the judgment of divine law,” said Newman. “Persons in this condition should not receive Holy Communion until and unless they are reconciled to God in the Sacrament of Penance, lest they eat and drink their own condemnation.”

Although not all Catholic officials agree with Newman’s stance, there are some who do, according to the Associated Press article.

“I don’t understand anyone who would call themselves a Christian, let alone a Catholic, and could vote for someone who’s a pro-abortion candidate,” said Ted Kelly, 64, who volunteers his time as lector for the church. “You’re talking about the murder of innocent beings.”

Now, I’m no theologian, but I firmly believe church and state should be separate at all times. (This belief, however, excludes obviously benign things, such as crosses on the city of Las Cruces, N.M.’s logo. It’s the city’s name, for crying out loud.) Church members shouldn’t have to feel guilty for voting a certain way.

Newman claimed his position – it’s a sin to vote for a pro-choice candidate when there’s a pro-life one – would have been the same had the Republican candidate been pro-choice and the Democrat been pro-life. That’s a terrible voting philosophy.

Imagine if everyone voted that way, choosing a candidate for a reason that, in the grand scheme of things, isn’t that important: for Obama because he’s black, for McCain because Sarah Palin is hot. Wait, people did that? Dammit, America!

What would happen if we could move to a socially responsible method of voting? Rather than voting for who you like, who you want to see naked, who will do the most for you or your small group or who you feel guilted into voting for, perhaps it’s time we start voting for what we logically believe will do the most good for our city/county/state/nation. I think some Americans – including me – voted for Obama for that reason.

I’m not saying abortion isn’t an important issue, but it had its heyday in the 1970s. There were several issues facing Americans that were more important during this election: the economy, Iraq, and health care easily outranked abortion. There’s simply no way someone could have – or should have – ignored all those issues and simply decided the next president should be the one who leans furthest toward pro-life.

Besides, if Kelly can’t bring himself to vote for Obama because he’s for the “murder of innocent beings,” how could he bring himself to vote for McCain? McCain was far more supportive of continuing a war that has killed nearly 100,000 innocent people, but maybe those people don’t count because they’re on the other side of the planet and predominantly Muslim.

In any case, how many Hail Marys does a parishioner have to do before he or she is forgiven for voting for Obama?