He Gets Us, a religious advertising campaign, ran advertisements during the Super Bowl yesterday, the second consecutive year it’s bought time during the biggest day on the calendar for commercials.
One ad showed Christians washing peoples’ feet, highlighting Jesus’ most infamous act of servitude. “Foot Washing,” which already has almost 225,000 views on YouTube, shows photos of people coming together to wash each other’s feet or have their feet washed.
In one instance, though, the feet of a woman outside a family planning clinic left other (right-wing) Christians outraged.
The photos—taken by Julia Fullerton-Batten and which despite criticism from viewers weren’t AI-generated—include shots of people of all races, sizes, and gender presentations giving or receiving feet washing, including a police officer washing a Black man’s feet and a white woman washing the feet of a white teen girl outside a “Family Planning Clinic,” hidden from anti-abortion protestors.
The latter photo has inspired outrage from right-wingers who saw its inclusion in the ad as praising abortion.
“‘Family planning clinic,'” an X user tweeted. “Aka ‘Baby murder altar.'”
“Of course #HeGetsUs made the woman at the abortion clinic a white woman,” conservative commentator Evan Kilgore tweeted. “‘Planned Parenthood’ doesn’t plan families. They murder children. This was intentional imagery because they don’t want to offend black people.”
One conservative even went as far as telling He Gets Us to “#WashTheseFeet from the ‘family planning’ clinic,” alongside a photo of bloody fetal feet.
“#StopTheHateOfTheUnborn,” they tweeted.
He Gets Us’s other Super Bowl ad emphasized loving thy neighbor, regardless of who that neighbor is. The message behind the ad seems clear, that even if you disagree with someone’s actions, you should still love and respect them.
But that aspect seemed to get lost in the outrage over an abortion clinic being depicted on TV.
“Jesus told sinners not to sin. He didn’t wash their feet to endorse their sinfulness. And he definitely would never endorse the murder of the unborn. Because that is intrinsically Evil,” wrote conservative influencer Seb Gorka.
His followers agreed.
“I questioned this commercial right off the bat. They think by including the name of Jesus, they’re taking the moral high ground, but it promotes murder of the unborn, homosexuality, and false racism. All of which are lies perpetrated by the Leftists, Elitists, and Satanism,” wrote a follower in response.
Though the group describes itself as “a diverse group of Jesus fans and followers with a variety of faith journeys and lived experiences” that want to “share the compelling story of Jesus’ life” in a new, different way, the campaign is part of the Servant Christian Foundation.
The Foundation is tied to the Alliance Defending Freedom, a Christian legal advocacy group that aims to restrict abortion and argued in front of the Supreme Court to overturn an anti-discrimination law in Colorado that outlaws discrimination against LGBTQ customers (which it did in 2023).
Despite its conservative affiliations, He Gets Us is being slammed by conservatives for pandering to the left in its ads.
“There’s a reason the ‘He Gets Us’ commercial didn’t show a liberal washing the feet of someone in a MAGA hat, or a BLM protestor washing an officer’s feet. That would’ve been actually subversive,” conservative journalist Joel Berry tweeted. “Because they were strictly following oppressed v oppressor intersectionality guidelines.”
