FOX Sports apparently has no problem airing controversial ads during the 2020 Super Bowl — just not a pro-life commercial.
According to NBC News, this year’s big game between the Kansas City Chiefs and the San Francisco 49ers will include a commercial featuring drag queens/LGBTQ activists.
Meanwhile, pro-life advocates with the new Faces of Choice organization said they have been waiting at least six months for an answer from FOX about their ad.
The drag queen ad from Sabra hummus already is stirring up controversy. It features drag queens Kim Chi and Miz Cracker from “RuPaul’s Drag Race.”
LGBTQ marketing strategist Bob Witeck celebrated the significance of the ad, telling NBC:
“For queer audiences, it is an art form and an ‘outsiders’ language,” Witek said of drag. “Reaching the Super Bowl means taking our language into every home in the nation and millions around the world.”
Witeck said the Sabra ad, which could reach around 100 million viewers during the Super Bowl, is indicative of a sea change in the public perception of drag, which he said has been normalized in the mainstream for many years, thanks in large part to the success of the award-winning reality show “RuPaul’s Drag Race.”
However, mainstream media companies often do not want to touch ads promoting what should be normal and non-controversial: the right to life for all human beings, including those not yet born.
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Faces of Choice leaders said they have been trying for more than six months to purchase ad time during the Super Bowl, but FOX Sports has repeatedly ignored them. Their powerful new ad premiered at the March for Life last week, and it featured the stories of more than a dozen people who survived abortions.
Lyric Gillett, the 28-year-old founder of Faces of Choice and producer of the ad, said they have a shortened version ready to air during the big game.
“Every great human rights movement in history has been anchored in the stories and the faces of its victims,” Gillett said. “That’s what we aim to do; we simply want to tell their forgotten stories and there’s no larger mega-phone than the Super Bowl. After months of correspondence with the Fox network, we are asking for a definitive answer immediately.”
She said they provided all the necessary documentation to FOX and answered its legal team’s questions, but the network still did not give her an answer.
This week, her organization and My Faith Votes launched a campaign urging pro-lifers to contact the network and ask for a final decision on the ad.
They asked people to email Fox Corp. SVP, Standards and Practices Barbara De Santis, VP, Commercial Clearance Maryana Dezarlo, SVP, Ad Sales Jim Reeder, and EVP, Corporate General Counsel Claudia Teran. The pro-life organizations also began a petition here.
If the network refuses to run the spot, Gillett encouraged pro-lifers to shut off the commercials during the Super Bowl and take time to watch the abortion survivors’ stories instead on YouTube. Find the video here.
Abortion survivors pose a vital question to abortion activists through the new ad, “Can you look me in the eye and say I should have been aborted?”
The abortion survivors featured in the ad are: Dr. Imre Téglásy (1952, Hungary); Paula Page (02/24/54); Miriam “Penny” Hopper (11/29/55); Denisha Workizer (7/11/76); Melissa Ohden (8/29/77); Jennifer Millbourn (9/02/78); Jennifer Callender (7/18/80); Claire Culwell (3/06/88); Hope Hoffman (8/12/91); Josiah Presley (10/07/95); Asiimwe Ronald Williams (9/25/97, Uganda); Dona Marie Mendoza (Philippines); Jaylyn Schoch (8/15/03); and Zechariah Hagan (10/20/13), one of the first abortion pill reversal survivors.
Ultimately, Faces of Choice leaders hope their stories will break down the myth of “choice.”
“Abortion advocates need to look these survivors in the eye and come to terms with the fact that they are human, that their lives matter, and that choice is more than a word: it’s a person,” Gillett said.
ACTION: Complain to Fox Sports by going to their Facebook page or Twitter.
