Have you been following the burning controversy over Miss California's statement against gay marriage in last weekend's Miss USA pageant? Carrie Prejean, the contestant in question, was asked by judge and well-known (and openly gay) celebrity blogger Perez Hilton whether she supported same-sex nups, as the tabloids put it. Prejean said:
"Well I think it's great that Americans are able to choose one or the other. Um, we live in a land that you can choose same sex marriage or opposite marriage and, you know what, in my country and in, 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."
Hilton later told a television show, perhaps too bluntly, that "the way miss California answered her question lost her the crown, without a doubt! Never before that I'm aware of has a contestant been booed at Miss USA."
This is just like politics, really. Beauty contestants, like politicians, have to speak in the most anodyne terms possible. It seems clear to me that it was her first sentence that tripped her up. The rest of it is just her opinion, but the first sentence was one big glaring misstatement of fact, because obviously same-sexers can't "choose one or the other," except in four states.
Several religious right figures have spoken up in Prejean's behalf, as you can see in this piece. I suppose it's a marker of social progress that being against gay marriage in a beauty pageant context is now sort of like piping up against world peace. But it's mostly kind of amusing that Christians and gay rights activists aren't joining forces to ask why we don't just dispense with beauty pageants anyway. On the other hand, I note with some parochial pride that Miss West Virginia made it to the top ten, a rare feat for our put-upon little state, so maybe they're not so bad.
