Tim Tebow debate crosses the Atlantic

Rome, Italy, Feb 5, 2010 / 15:59 pm

The Italian Daily Il Foglio has joined the media frenzy surrounding the production of a commercial including members of the Tebow family for the Super Bowl this year.  In an article titled “The Implacable Unrelenting Tim Tebow,” the paper describes the scene surrounding the commercial they deem a “hymn to life.”

Saying that he condenses all of his spirit in a face covered in bible verses, the newspaper presents Tim Tebow to the Italian people as a the "football player that’s dividing America.”

Il Foglio also describes his Evangelical upbringing by calling Tebow the “son of missionaries who have made compassion for others the indelible mark of a faith experienced in the public arena.” 

They portray the Tebow family as “more smiles than posters, more action than mystic” and refer to the presence of the quarterback in commercial from Focus on the Family as “scandalously fascinating and totally sensational.”

In the commercial, Tim and his mother, Pam, will tell the story of how he was born against the recommendations of her doctors, who suggested that she abort the baby to avoid the possible transmission of a tropical disease she had at the time of her pregnancy.

With a simple “no” and her “non-synthetic” smile, the paper says, she has the baby and he goes on to college football stardom.

Analyzing the “ire and protest of the liberal world” following the announcement of the commerical, the Italian paper says liberals are “on the verge of a nervous breakdown” after having been “put in check by a mother, that as far as we know, will limit herself to just telling the story of how things went, without a slogan of propaganda.”

It’s exactly this fact that “is convincing some sceptical observers that Tebow’s message isn’t the sanctimonious interference of an armed group against abortion, but a simple and ordinary story of reason and heart,” the article finishes.

The commercial is set to air during this year’s Super Bowl which will take place this Sunday, Feb. 7.