There are three things, not two, you don’t talk about at the dinner table: religion, politics and Tim Tebow. Did you know that there are three, not two, certainties in life? Yup: death, taxes and Tim Tebow—the hysteria of.

This deeply pious and soft-spoken man is undoubtedly the most polarizing figure in sports today. It’s altogether likely that the plucky Denver Broncos’ quarterback is performing in rarefied air as sports history’s most divisive persona.

It’s clear why. But just whisper it.

Religion. Politics. The politics of religion; the religion in politics. Why are most in the sports media so willing to play dumb and mask the ugly truth? How the oftentimes explosive subjects of religion and politics have infested the NFL through the entity—or deity—that is Tim Tebow. Why do they consistently feign befuddlement over why anyone would find #15 objectionable?

For me, the “why” stems from the legacy of a demagogue named James Dobson, quoted here: “Communities do not let prostitutes, pedophiles, voyeurs, adulterers and those who sexually prefer animals to publicly celebrate their lifestyle, so why should we let homosexuals get such privileges?”

As a Colorado native, the marriage of Tebow’s extreme religious identity to his status as Denver’s team symbol have weakened my once ironclad loyalty to Broncos football. Today, as an agnostic with predominantly liberal sensibilities, my conscience knows better than to let childhood allegiance to a cartoon horse override my own set of core values: the rejection of hate, and support of true equality; the separation of church and state; and the defense of women’s reproductive rights.

Timothy Richard Tebow’s celebrity became personal to me when he starred with his mom, Pam, in a Focus on the Family (FOTF) television ad to espouse his pro-life stance during 2010’s Saints vs. Colts Super Bowl. Focus on the Family is an evangelical Christian non-profit organization founded by James Dobson, and headquartered in my birthplace—Colorado Springs, Colo. The Southern Poverty Law Center, the influential civil rights law firm out of Montgomery, Ala., characterizes FOTF as the nation’s most destructive ‘anti-gay’ group. A descriptor of FOTF on the firm’s website reads: “No one has spread the anti-gay gospel as widely, or with as much political impact, as James Dobson, the former child development professor and spanking enthusiast.”

Though in truth, the ad itself was just darling—if you blot out its draconian agenda against women’s reproductive rights and the vile anti-gay track record of its sponsor. Sure, it was a charming spot–if one discounts FOTF’s ideological and “academic” fraternity with a discredited, quack researcher with white supremacist ties named Paul Cameron–founder of the “anti-gay” hate group The Family Research Institute, also based in Colorado Springs. Cameron once declared AIDS a “godsend,” and views gay people as “‘diseased perverts’ with a program to molest children and demolish America.” 

In 1988, Focus on the Family merged with The Family Research Council (FRC)–another shrill anti-gay consortium concerned with “family values.” The dissolution of their legal partnership in 1992, however, was a decision borne of financial practicality, not a rift in ideology. According to The Southern Poverty Law Center: The FRC believes that gay people regard “pedophiles as ‘prophets’ of a new sexual order.”

Yes, you can rightly say ‘Tebow’ in the same breath as the aforementioned hate mongers. His relationships to the above are both direct and peripheral, but most damning of all: they are willing.  But enough of that unpleasantness: Tim and mumsy love each other dearly. I’m down, baby. What I’m not down with, though, is Tim Tebow doing business with an organization that I, and a great many others, regard as a force for hate and injustice. Focus on the hate Family and many of its partnerships actively work for the dehumanization and suffering of those they feel morally superior to The Southern Poverty Law Center writes, “On Focus’ 47-acre campus in Colorado Springs, some 1,300 employees battle against gay rights, sex education, and women’s rights with an enormous annual budget of $130 million.” Yeah, Tim Tebow is not my kind of individual. I’m not anti-Christian: I’m anti-hate. You sicken me because of who you’re in bed with, Tim.