Fox Sports is being accused of censoring a 30-second commercial for Super Bowl LIV that features survivors of abortion while at the same time planning to air a commercial featuring two drag queens.
Over 36,800 people have signed onto a petition sponsored by the evangelical grassroots organization My Faith Votes calling on Fox to include a pro-life advertisement in what is sure to be a packed Super Bowl lineup on Sunday.
In a separate petition launched by the activist group One Million Moms, about 20,300 are calling on Fox to remove a commercial featuring drag queens known from their time on “RuPaul’s Drag Race.”
Faces of Choice is a recently established organization dedicated to raising awareness about the overlooked demographic of thousands of people who survived abortion.
The organization declared on social media this week that over the past six months, it has struggled in its quest to have Fox clear a half-minute commercial for the big game.
According to the petition, Faces of Choice was told by Fox executives that there were not any more slots available for 30-second ads during Super Bowl Sunday.
“[B]ut we discovered that’s not true,” the petition reads. “There are ads spots still available.”
The ad in question does not mention abortion but shows abortion survivors asking viewers if they can look them in the eye and tell them they shouldn’t be alive. The survivors declare in the video that they are the “faces of choice.”
“Can you tell me that I didn’t deserve to survive?” one survivor says in the ad.
Another survivor in the video states: “Choice tried to steal our lives.”
The full 2-minute ad was shown during the 2020 March for Life in Washington, D.C., last week.
Last week, it was reported that advertisement slots were added for Super Bowl Sunday. Seth Winter, executive vice president of sales for Fox Sports, told Variety the ad slots that opened up were for 60-second floating ads for sponsors that have been longtime supporters of the NFL and Fox Sports.
Winter explained that since the network announced the Super Bowl lineup sell out, the sales team has been overwhelmed with requests from advertisers looking for placement in the game. Additionally, he said some advertisers already in the lineup have been looking to buy more time.
According to Winter, the Fox broadcast of the game will feature the equivalent of 80 30-second ads.
“We have a lot of people who are eager to expand their creative,” Winter was quoted as saying.
Addressing Gillett’s complaint, a Fox spokesperson told The Washington Times in a statement that the network was “unable to accommodate” Faces of Choice and other advertisers because they “sold out at a record pace this year.”
My Faith Votes CEO Jason Yates told CBN News that his organization has teamed up with Faces of Choice to “put the pressure on.”
In addition to the petition, Yates encouraged supporters to email Fox Sports executives to “let them know that this is something that needs to be heard and talked about.”
“If you look at Super Bowls of recent past, important social conversations have been taking place in commercials — issues of immigration, the #MeToo movement, commercials by Coca-Cola talking about transgenderism,” Yates said. “The Super Bowl is a national stage used to talk about important issues. We believe that this an important conversation that needs to take place.”
Fox separately ruffled Christian conservative feathers by reportedly approving a commercialfor Sabra hummus that will include two drag queen stars named Kim Chi and Miz Cracker.
The short advertisement marks the first time that drag queens will be featured in a Super Bowl advertisement, according to The Washington Post. The ad features the two drag stars in a dressing room. Kim Chi is shown eating Sabra while Miz Cracker jokingly tries to fit a football helmet over a large wig.
“So there you have it. Fox has said ‘yes’ to drag queens and ‘no’ to abortion survivors,” Evangelical leader James Dobson, the founder of Focus on the Family, said in a statement. “Celebrating sexual fantasy while denying the value of every life… could the soul of America be any more lost?”
Dobson accused Fox Sports of transforming the Super Bowl from a “family-friendly event into an opportunity to promote a gender ideology that goes against the most basic biological realities.”
“An ad promoting drag queens is not what we had in mind when urging the NFL to keep the Super Bowl LIV commercials and halftime entertainment family-friendly,” the One Million Moms petition reads.
“Sabra Dipping Company LLC is choosing to push an agenda of sexual confusion instead of promoting its actual product. The PC-inclusive ad blurs the biological distinctions between male and female. Normalizing this lifestyle is contrary to what conservative, Christian parents are teaching their children about God’s design for sexuality.”
