February 1, 2010

CBS Says Yes to Life, No to Gay Dating

Flickr/<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/kyleandkelly/">Kyle and Kelly Adams</a> (<a href="http://www.creativecommons.org" target="_blank">Creative Commons</a>).

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


A bit of drama over at CBS, where the television network, after approving an anti-abortion Super Bowl ad sponsored by Focus on the Family, found itself in the awkward position of having to review an ad from ManCrunch, a gay online dating site. CBS ultimately rejected the ManCrunch ad, and a number of bloggers on the left are calling it everything from blatant discrimination to reasonably nixing a lame ad that was never worth fighting for anyway. (See AtlanticWire for a good round-up.)
 
For the record, the Focus on the Family ad shows that not having an abortion significantly increases your chances of having a famous football player for a son, and the ManCrunch ad shows that even if you’re two straight-ish-looking commercial actors, an accidental brushing of hands in the chip bowl raises your chances of experiencing a spontaneous man-on-man make out session. 

 

 
Meanwhile, Liliana Segura at AlterNet wonders whether NFL quarterback Tim Tebow’s birth story, which provides the juicy material for the Focus on the Family ad, is even true.
 
Interesting to note that Focus on the Family recently hired 27-year-old Esther Fleece to bring Twitter-savvy millenials—who, according to Fleece, find some of their older predecessors’ anti-gay rhetoric alienating—into the conservative Christian fold. To read more about Fleece, be sure to check out Stephanie Mencimer’s excellent article in the most recent issue of Mother Jones. Also see Tim Murphy’s post on the ongoing rift at Focus on the Family.
 

 

WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

payment methods

WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate