I appreciate your reply.
I’m just not seeing what you’re saying, though. Focus on the Family is strongly pro-homeschooling. Here’s one set of articles published by Focus, for example:
http://www.focusonthefamily.com/parenting/schooling/effective_home_schooling.aspx
Dr. Dobson said here — http://family.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/family.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=822 — that “If Shirley and I were raising our children again, we would home school them at least for the first few years!” He, and the rest of Focus on the Family, strongly affirm homeschooling.
Regarding Focus on the Family’s approach on the homosexual lifestyle. They were criticized for giving hundreds of thousands of dollars to defend traditional marriage — how is that an indication that Focus is becoming weak in that area?
The Super Bowl ad was aimed at mothers, to encourage them to choose life. It was not a “political” ad meant to score political points. It has proven effective.
You can be supportive of homeschooling and still be an educational antinomian. The issue isn’t what the position is on homeschooling, the issue is what the position is on having Christian children disciplined in an aggressively anti-Christian government school system. As I indicated, Dobson has been good on this issue in public and in private. Focus has not.
The people that I know who were involved with the marriage issue in California believed that Focus was far too willing to be “moderate” in the marriage battles that have been fought there. So, yes, you can put money into a cause and still not be a principled champion of that cause.
As for the ad, while it might have seemed clever to marketing people, it certainly created the impression that Focus was ashamed of the Gospel. The “life” message isn’t political.