. Focus on the Family’s ownership of its land (it
\n\tprefers to own rather than rent its space) and buildings add up to $48 million
\n\ton its books, and in 2004 they cited the cost of upkeep and improvements on
\n\ttheir property to be over $101.5 million.<\/span>\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n \n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\nThere are so few extremist, conservative organizations that actually exist to
\nprovide non-biased, evidence-based, health care and social services for women, men and young people. Are there any? On
\nthe other hand, without individual progressives funding health care and other services for
\nwomen (and men and young people) for places like Planned Parenthood, abortion funds,
\nindependent women’s health centers, domestic violence shelters and more, we’d have far fewer health care and social serivce
\noptions available. So, while women’s health advocates *are* donating
\nmulti-millions to ensure actual care, conservatives are donating money to produce
\nslick, persuasive media. <\/p>\nHistorically, more controversial issues have needed to be pushed almost
\nentirely from the grassroots. No one "funded" the suffragist movement
\nor the gay rights movement or the civil rights movement. We’re fighting against
\na huge, well-funded patriarchal machine and unless and until we either a) elect
\nmore progressive representatives who actually are pro-choice or b) persuade
\nsome mega millionaires or venture capitalists that progressive media (like Air
\nAmerica, for instance) is worth funding, I’m not sure what we can do at the level of a Super
\nBowl Ad. <\/span>\n<\/p>\n
\nIt is worth noting, of course, that this battleground over women’s health and rights exists to the degree it does because<\/em> abortion access is legal in this country. It is not entirely accessible. It is not always affordable. It is dampened, often times, by state laws that seek to do nothing more than obstruct, with the woman’s well-being nowhere near a priority. But abortion is<\/em> legal in the United States.\n<\/p>\n\nThis kind of equity and justice is terrifying to extremist, conservative, Christian organizations like Focus on the Family.\u00a0 It’s so utterfly terrifying, in fact, that they are willing to spend millions of dollars<\/em> on advertising to a mostly male audience<\/strong> about how critical it is that women’s rights be obstructed and controlled by their agenda.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n\nThe truth is Focus on the Family exists to produce slick propaganda and will pay millions of dollars to spread their gospel –\u00a0 that’s essentially why they exist. They don’t care for the sick or ensure health care for those without health insurance (as Planned Parenthood and independent women’s health centers do around the country).\n<\/p>\n
\nOn a final note, and this deserves investigation, while Focus on the Family does make a lot of its money from revenue from its own book, CD, and DVD sales (according to Right Wing Watch), it also receives millions in grants. Are there similar, well-positioned women’s media organizations that are funded at similar levels? It is of course comparing apples to oranges as Focus on the Family is, at its core, a religious ministry and those who grant money to the organization may be donating more for FoF’s religious-ness than its media empire. But with Air America gone, and women-led, women-focused media outlets like Ms. Magazine run by a non-profit, how do we level the playing field (or do we?). It’s worth pondering.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Super Bowl advertisement being funded and produced by Focus on the Family, using NFL player Tim Tebow and his mother Pam to highlight the beauty and importance of a woman being able to decide for herself whether she wants to carry a pregnancy to term or terminate\u00a0 choosing to carry her pregnancy to term, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-268765","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268765","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=268765"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268765\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=268765"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=268765"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=268765"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}