Just Smile and Answer ‘World Peace’ Next Time

by Daniel J. Flynn

Why would Perez Hilton be invited to judge a beauty contest? That, rather than the fact that Miss California answers the gay marriage question as the voters of her state did, is the real scandal of last weekend’s Miss USA pageant. Hilton’s subsequent misogynistic rants–calling Miss California Carrie Prejean a “dumb bitch” and saying he regarded her as “the C-word”–should have immediately generated censure from those involved with the contest. Instead, two co-directors of the Miss California event have blasted Miss California.

“I think that I believe that a marriage should be between a man and a woman,” Prejean answered Hilton. “No offense to anybody out there, but that’s how I was raised.” Hilton intolerantly celebrates that the answer cost Prejean the Miss USA crown. “That’s not the kind of woman I want to be Miss USA,” he told MSNBC. “Miss USA should represent all Americans, and with that answer she instantly was divisive.” But Hilton asked the question, and giving a definitive answer–which is what he asked for–inevitably would have alienated some large group of people. And had she answered Hilton’s ideological quiz correctly, how would that not be divisive to somebody out there?



Cultural Apologetics: A Holy Chastising
by Reverend Woody Hol

The God of this age has declared someone un-holy. Take up your stones and follow me.

The reigning Miss California, Carrie Prejean, has sinned mightily. Not in any of the traditional ways, at least, not that we know of, but that is no matter because she has not sinned against a traditional God. She has done something far worse. She has sinned against the true almighty. She has sinned against Pop-Culture. For those of you who still cling to antiquated, intolerant, patriarchal religion, you may have a difficult time understanding why Miss Prejean must be made example of. First, you might not understand how she has made herself unclean to begin with, and even if you could understand it, you might not understand why she must be cleansed with her own suffering and blood. Of course, that is because you believe in a loving, righteous God who is full of grace. Please, grow up. Quit trying to force your religion on the rest of us. The only good evangelicals evangelize in the name of our new King, and She is right displeased with Miss Prejean.

In fairness, Miss Prejean was already on pretty shaky grounds with The Culture. After all, she is a beauty queen. I will readily admit to not knowing much about beauty queens, other than what The Culture has allowed me to know, of course, which is that they are, to a person, uniformly white, upper-class, insecure, and vapid creatures with hardly a thought in their pretty little heads. Most of them, if not all, have overbearing, hypocritical stage mother’s who don’t so much love them as they objectify them and live their own lost youth’s vicariously through them. They have no personal values, of course–any pretense to the contrary is merely a contrivance meant to earn them points with the judges, a series of sex-addled male miscreants who are themselves secretly doing drugs and sleeping with half of the young fools anyway. So, clearly Miss Prejean was already in need of some serious penance. At a minimum, she needs to get an STD, make a sex-tape, and grow up, as one Cultural Rabbi recently prescribed a wayward daughter, but there was still hope. Not anymore.

Miss Prejean’s greatest crime is not her looks, or her vestigial belief that a woman can be beautiful and feminine and still successful and proud. Her greatest crime is answering a question honestly. When asked by judge Perez Hilton, a well-known expert on women and on politics, whether or not she believed in same-sex marriage–the kind of deeply personal question it is perfectly appropriate to ask a stranger on national television–Miss Prejean slipped up and told the truth. She didn’t make a political statement, or call for any sort of action against anyone, she merely said that, based on her personal beliefs and background, she thinks marriage should be between a man and a woman. Gasps! Wailing! Gnashing of teeth! You mean she actually agrees with the vast majority of human beings who have ever lived on this planet about gender roles in marriage??? I’m sorry to say that seems to be the case. Now you know why she must be destroyed.

Keith Lewis, who runs the Miss California competition quickly denounced Miss Prejean’s heresy, lest any of the Almighty’s wrath fall on him for being a poor steward of the fragile young ladies in his care:

As co-director of the Miss California USA, I am personally saddened and hurt that Miss California believes marriage rights belong only to a man and a woman. I believe all religions should be able to ordain what unions they see fit. I do not believe our government should be able to discriminate against anyone and religious beliefs have no politics in the Miss California family.

Saddened that she executed her first amendment rights, not by volunteering a political view-point, but simply by honestly answering a direct question? Amen, brother. I’m glad we asked you. Oh wait, we didn’t… You didn’t have to get on a stage in front of thousands of people and get asked a loaded question to which there is, quite clearly, only one appropriate answer. No bother. At least you got in your lashes early. Your trespasses are forgiven. But as for Miss Prejean, there is no amount of blood-letting that will purge her sins. Our God’s tolerance, which She prides Herself on, does know some limits.

Now, there are those out there who will say that Miss Prejean has been done a terrible disservice. After all, if there is only one correct answer to a question, it seems a bit disingenuous to ask it. Almost as though the question is less of a, well, question, meant to ascertain a point of view, and more of an old-fashion loyalty test, meant to vet out apostates before they are allowed to ascend too far in this world. You might be thinking Miss Prejean should not have been asked such a question in the first place, should not have been set-up to fail, should not have been tested thus. You might feel that by asking someone an honest question, the questioner is inherently signifying that they don’t have a strangle-hold on truth, and that to bait someone with an interrogative sentence that is really no question at all is actually dishonest. If so, don’t worry. Her-highness already has Her priesthood scouring the applicable political contribution databases and your name will soon be known to all of us so that your chastising may begin. There is likely still hope for you, provided you make the appropriate prayers and offerings, and of course, that you stop watching those accused beauty pageants. Unless of course it is for the purpose of judging those poor, beautiful girls as they walk through the un-enlightened darkness..