Miss California's Fall From Grace and What it Means for the Bigotry Industry

A BUZZFLASH NEWS ANALYSIS
by Meg White

Things just keep getting worse for Miss California.

In case you (like myself) hadn't been paying strict attention to the pageant circuit of late, here's how one ditzy answer leads to the unraveling of a promising career and a burgeoning hate movement all at once.

A few weeks ago, the Miss USA beauty pageant was held in Las Vegas. Besides parading around in swimsuits and slinky dresses, the contestants are required to open their mouths and actually say something. This is where it all went wrong for the woman who represented the golden state.

As part of the competition, Perez Hilton, an openly-gay celebrity blogger, asked Carrie Prejean whether or not she thought the nation should follow Vermont and allow same-sex marriage. Her answer catapulted her into Internet infamy (emphasis mine):

Well, I think it's great that Americans are able to choose one or the other. We live in a land that you can choose same-sex marriage or opposite marriage. And you know what? In my country, in my family, I think that I believe that a marriage should be between a man and a woman. No offense to anybody out there, but that's how I was raised and that's how I think that it should be -- between a man and a woman.

Upon hearing that, my response (after being surprised that she couldn't string together a full sentence even though she said she studied all of the possible questions beforehand) was, "Well, I'm glad I don't live in her country. Think of how terrible it would be if Carrie Prejean represented the whole USA! Thankfully, she only came in second place."

Hilton apparently thought, "She's a dumb b***h." And said so in a video on his blog, launching this story beyond the pageant/celebrity-watcher audience. Hilton's profanity was unnecessary, but more importantly, it overshadowed his surprisingly thoughtful critique of anti-marriage arguments.

Furthermore, his lashing out at Prejean immediately after the show gave some credence to the suggestion that Prejean came in second place due to her thoughts on gay marriage, even though Hilton began the video by saying that wasn't the reason she lost.

Prejean later told reporters that she thought the answer cost her the crown. But she brushed off the very idea of being politically correct just to win some silly beauty pageant with the following statement:

I see the audience would've wanted me to be more politically correct. But I was raised in a way that you can never compromise your beliefs and your opinions for anything.

No, never. Not for anything. Not even a chance at being a Victoria's Secret model.

Oh wait: She did. Back when Prejean was 17 she did something that is not only morally reprehensible by many religious standards, but illegal in some states. She posed topless (though apparently covering up her naughty bits with her arm; very tasteful) because, she said in a press release, her agent told her it would help her get a contract with the famous lingerie company.

Were she not a pageant participant, her colored past would be merely hypocritical. But indications from Miss USA lawyers are that Prejean's runner-up crown will be yanked, as it is against the entry rules to have participated in nude or semi-nude modeling. The Web site that revealed the photos has indicated that there are several other scandalous photos of Prejean that have not yet been released.

Recent revelations from some unnamed people at NBC who know stuff about breasts on the Internet say that we might have to add "lying" to Miss California's un-beauty-queen-like behavior. "They" allege that the nude pictures appear to have been taken after the breast augmentation surgery that Miss California had some six weeks prior to the pageant.

Prejean's surgical enhancement was confirmed and paid for by the Miss California organization. This seemed somewhat bizarre to me until considering the fact that California, home to the "breast implant capital of the world," couldn't very well send a flat-chested woman to a Miss USA competition. That would just be embarrassing. Almost as embarrassing as having your representative disqualified and then possibly caught lying about it.

Apparently, though, the National Organization for Marriage (NOM) does not have similar restrictions for their spokespeople. After the original dust-up over her comments during the pageant, NOM took Prejean in as its new spokesmodel. She may not be particularly articulate, but at least she's better looking than the sci-fi Mormon wack job they recently picked up.

NOM was quick to make a commercial in support of what Prejean clumsily called "opposite marriage," featuring her answer and firing back at Hilton and other Prejean critics as intolerant of her intolerance.

You can watch the commercial here. There you can also read a press release that accompanies the video, which includes this clever slight of hand:

Tolerance is a one-way street for many gay marriage advocates. Even Human Rights Campaign President Joe Solmonese was unwilling to give an inch when pressed to support conscience protections for churches and other religious organizations.

NOM is intentionally confusing two similar words here: tolerance and acceptance. In fact, it seems the anti-gay marriage campaign as a whole (as well as groups that oppose hate crimes legislation) has adopted this manufactured conflict.

NOM's argument that "opposite marriage" will cease to exist if same-sex marriage is legal is showing obvious gaps in logic, so they've slightly shifted their focus. The organization is now trying to convince Americans that the idea of "gay rights" means that you have to accept gay people into your home and church with unconditional love and support, and that people won't be allowed to say anything in opposition to the homosexual lifestyle.

In reality, same-sex marriage and hate crimes laws mean that you can't legally prohibit a woman from visiting her sick wife in the hospital or from providing healthcare benefits for her. It means you can't go out and beat up a gay man because he's gay.

Prejean's confused self-righteousness seems to fit in nicely with NOM's holier-than-thou attitude.

Former Miss USA and pageant director Shanna Moakler pointed out in her blog that Miss USA doesn't have to love gay people. But she should be able to deal with the reality that same-sex marriage is a legal (not religious) expression of commitment, in which hate and judgement should have no part. From The Vancouver Sun:

"She lost the crown because she wasn't able to convey compassion for all the people that, as Miss USA, she would be representing," Moakler wrote on her blog, adding, "And if you like it or not, gays and lesbians make up this country as well. This is why we have judges, so they can find the right woman who obtains these qualities."

When you choose a spokesperson based on their looks, what you see is what you get. So when Miss USA judges saw a pretty bigot, they said "No, thanks." But when NOM saw the same thing they plastered Prejean's pretty, inarticulate face all over their cause.

I'm confident they'll be able to turn Prejean's hypocrisy into PR gold, though. Maybe she could model NOM chastity belts?

A BUZZFLASH NEWS ANALYSIS