A Gator Says Bye to Timmy
As a long-time Gator, and also a long-time secularist, I’ve gotten used to not worrying about politics and religion when it comes to my love for the Gators. I was at UF with QB Kerwin Bell, a devout evangelical Christian who thanked god in interviews after games, and no Gator will probably ever rival the gutty Danny Wuerffel, he of the praying hands after each of his 100+ touchdowns, in my affections.
But clearly no Gator, and no other football player I can think of, has mixed his faith and football as much and as powerfully as Tim Tebow. As our core readership surely knows, Timmy is appearing on a commercial during this year’s Super Bowl to extol the virtues of choosing against abortion, as his mother did when doctors advised her after a bout of malaria to abort the baby who became Timmy, as they figured he’d be unlikely to live anyway. But she chose to have the baby that BECAME TIM TEBOW!!!! Who could argue against such a powerful narrative?
Well, forgetting for a moment that not every woman in that situation is already a mother who wants to raise another child, or that not all such women are in a financial or social position to have a baby, or that the sample size of one that Timmy represents may not be statistically significant in describing the situations of babies who are born to women considering abortion, Tebow is still clearly putting himself in some bad company.
Whose company? Focus on the Family, the group that’s paying for the ad. This is the group founded and led till a couple months ago by James Dobson, who has said that Obama is not a real Christian, that legal gay marriage MUST also allow marriage between fathers and daughters and people and donkeys, and that gay hate crimes legislation shouldn’t pass because it would outlaw a person saying that pedophilia is wrong.
Timmy’s going to alienate a lot of fans, a lot of Gators with this. Of course, I’m sure he doesn’t care—he believes what he believes and will continue to say it. But one wishes he could be like Wuerffel, who has built a thriving center helping African-American kids in a rough part of New Orleans and who has never, to my knowledge, used his faith to attack other people.
Keep in mind that Timmy’s Dad, Bob Tebow, has called abortion doctors “murderers” and has always specifically chosen to try to evangelize in Philippine areas in which Islam is the central religion. Bob Tebow wants to take down other religions and force his beliefs on everyone else. And now his son’s heading that way.
I’m glad Tebow’s time as a Gator is up. I’ll always love him as a member of Gator Nation, but if he’s going to “pal around with” guys like Dobson, I won’t be rooting for him in the future.
Chris Borglum:
PS–Dobson is also the guy who suggested that the use of SpongeBob in a video made by Nile Rodgers to raise money for 9/11 victims, but which also contained a link to a site at which a child COULD sign a “tolerance pledge,” meant that SpongeBob was a servant of the “homosexual agenda.” Good times!
28 January 2010, 1:13 pmAndy Vann:
Ummmm, SpongeBob as a servant of the homosexual agenda? Key-rist, don’t these people ever listen to themselves?
28 January 2010, 5:53 pmChris Borglum:
The Center for Reproductive Rights is formally requesting CBS to review the content of the ad now, since they have pointed out that abortion has been completely illegal with NO exceptions in the Phillippines since 1870, and that no reasonable doctor would risk his license and jail time to recommend a woman get an abortion. Hence, the story itself may be based on a false premise; one can’t crow about how moral she is for not doing something that’s illegal, can one? “I have totally chosen not to go drive now that I’ve pounded this bottle of tequila!”
29 January 2010, 8:42 amDan Greenstein:
Thanks for the update, Chris. Tricia also mentioned to me last night that abortion is illegal in the Philippines. I am glad to see holes being poked in this story, but I am still a bit sad the Tebow mythos is falling apart. Good times while they lasted, but it is nonetheless disappointing, even from a non-Gator fan.
29 January 2010, 1:38 pmChris Borglum:
Sure. Timmy’s general goodness radiates outward. As an angry secularist, I’m liable to reflexively get angry about folks with such views, but Tebow has, before this, never been divisive or difficult. And even here, I don’t think he’s trying to be. Unfortunately, I think those advising him, including his dad, might be putting him in a difficult position.
29 January 2010, 7:10 pmAndy Vann:
I still don’t understand why CBS changed their policies in the first place to accept the ad. What happened there?
1 February 2010, 5:17 pmChris Borglum:
Ads supporting conservative groups and ideas are fine. Mancrunch.com’s gay dating service ad is controversial.
1 February 2010, 8:06 pmSimon:
I’m pretty sure I have a mancrush on Spongebob. After a night of too many tequila shots, I once had an accidental three-way with him and Sandy the Squirrel, but when Squidward showed up wearing a sombrero and started demanding that we call him Dirty Sanchez, things got a little weird.
But at least I was able to cuddle with Spongebob in the afterglow.
19 February 2010, 10:31 amDanGo:
Pretty sure this wins the award for strangest comment ever posted on Fourth and Dumb.
19 February 2010, 10:34 amChris Borglum:
MancruNch, Gary, not MancruSh. But it’s a good website for you, either way. I hear Ted Haggard has an account now.
Hey, F&D staff: we should probably write something about college football once a month through the dry season.
21 February 2010, 1:09 pmDanGo:
What is this football of which you speak? Spring training is here!
23 February 2010, 12:27 am