Carrie Prejean: beauty queen ursurped
Posted by Mathew | June 16, 2009 | 6 Comments
No sooner than a month after Donald Trump, owner of the Miss USA Organization, declared that Carrie Prejean would retain her crown as Miss California, Ms Prejean last week had her crown wrested away from her – with the blessing of Mr Trump.
There is no doubt that the majority of the gay and lesbian community would have celebrated the issuance of the pinkslip to Ms Prejean following her comments in support of opposite-sex marriage in last April’s Miss USA beauty pageant. At the pageant, Ms Prejean fielded a question from gay celebrity personality Perez Hilton on what she thought about gay marriage; her response, though far from eloquent, was simple, respectful and to the point: she believes marriage ought to be between a man and a woman. Period.
Shortly thereafter a barrage of stinging attacks swirled around the beauty queen, both in the mainstream media and in the blogosphere which amounted to nothing more than name-calling, as I wrote in Carrie Prejean: nude pics, hypocrisy, intolerance and irrelevancy 101. Just a few days after that Sunday evening in April, semi-nude photographs of Ms Prejean posing in lingerie – described by some articles and blogs as “racey”, but no more “racey” than any women’s lingerie catalogue – were circulated around the internet. This sparked yet more cries of hypocrisy and name-calling – again, all unfounded and not at all relevant to Ms Prejean’s fair-answered opinion on the topic of same-sex marriage.
The photographs, however, did land her in some trouble with the Miss California Organization – they meant she was allegedly in breach of contract. Enter Donald Trump.
At this point in time, it was evident that rabid supporters of same-sex marriage weren’t content with just condeming Ms Prejean for her views (Ms Prejean had by this stage also teamed up with pro-traditional marriage advocacy, National Organization for Marriage, in an advertising campaign) – they wanted her stripped (no pun intended) of her Miss California crown for her “bigoted” comment. Strangely, Ms Prejean found an ally in Donald Trump – in a press conference, Mr Trump defended Ms Prejean for her response, finding no fault in how she answered: indeed, Mr Trump made the comparison that no other high-celebrity figure had pointed out up until then – President Obama had also publicly stated that he believed that marriage was to be between a man and a woman and there was no public uproar at him having done so, so why harrangue Ms Prejean?
At the press conference, Mr Trump announced that Carrie Prejean would remain as Miss California.
Incensed by this decision, Shanna Moakler – co-Executive Director of the Miss California Organization – resigned in protest. Apparently, speaking your mind as Ms Prejean did should not be allowed by beauty queens by Moakler’s standard. And with that, as quickly as this whole debacle started, it seemed to have finished.
At least so it seemed.
Just last week came the news that Donald Trump had signalled that Carrie Prejean would be fired as Miss California as she was not fulfilling some of the obligations expected of her in her role as beauty queen. The new controversy seems to be around the nature of these so-called contractual obligations: a partially-nude photoshoot for men’s magazine, Playboy, and an appearance on crass TV-reality show, I’m a Celebrity … get Me Out of Here!
Well, where to start here?
If it is true that MS Prejean was fired because of not wanting to engage in either of these two appearances, then I take my hat off to her. Reportedly, she was offered US$140,000 for the Playboy shoot – that’s no mean feat to turn down in itself, but in my view Ms Prejean kept her head, declined and ought to be commended.
Some might argue that the Playboy shoot would have been no different from the semi-nude pics of Ms Prejean that found their way onto the net – as if to suggest that her turning down this offer was nothing deserving of praise because she had already “sold” herself out previously … for less! In truth, I don’t know why exactly the original semi-nude pictures were done (there are some vague references to them helping Ms Prejean launch her modeling career), but I do know that the intent of Playboy magazine is not for the honouring of the women who appear within it’s glossy pages. Playboy has one specific intent – to objectify its women as sex objects for the lusting over of its male “readership”. There’s no comparison between the two as there is a world of difference.
And in my mind, declining to appear on any kind of reality TV show, when invited (and most likely also offered an appearance fee), is a further mark of good character. I believe Ms Prejean is going from strength to strength. Now there is apparently a book deal in the wings for Ms Prejean – which she is able to pursue given her contract with the Miss California Organization is severed.
To recap, there are a slush of articles and blog posts out there that describe Ms Prejean as having stated that gays and lesbians should have no right to same-sex marriage – such articles misrepresent Ms Prjean from the outset: marriage is not a right and she never said it was nor that it should be denied to gays and lesbians. What she did say was something that is very difficult for the majority of Christians to say with an equal conviction: that marriage ought remain the union between a man and woman.
Opposite-sex marriage (a tautology of a phrase, unfortunately) is for the good of society as a whole – and will stand to continue to benefit both gay and straight couples alike because society is built on the sure foundation that is the family unit – and is an issue that never ought to be taken so lightly as it has been done by the liberal media puppets, nor polarised to advance the political agenda of gay and lesbian activists.
While Carrie Prejean is no longer the Miss California queen, her book is bound to elicit another swirl of controversy.
What a beauty that will be!
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Tags: Carrie Prejean > culture > homosexuality > marriage > same-sex marriage
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6 Responses to “Carrie Prejean: beauty queen ursurped”
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June 17th, 2009 @ 8:35 am
I can remember the names of but two Beauty Queens: Venessa Williams and Carrie Prejean. The current Ms Whatever, if she had any sense, would kill to have the fame now enjoyed by Ms. Prejean.
June 17th, 2009 @ 8:39 am
I can remember but two beauty queens, Venessa Williams and Carrie Prejean. The current Ms Whatever, if she had any sense, would kill to have the fame now enjoyed by Ms Prejean.
June 17th, 2009 @ 12:11 pm
Thanks, Dan. That couldn't be truer. Perhaps the fame Carrie now has because of this blown-out-of-proportion schmozzle can continue to work in her favour – whenever she speaks out in future against such notions as same-sex marriage, she will always be assured of getting press coverage. This can only be good for the likes of NOM, et al. What do you think? Providential?
BTW, since writing this article (and even before it – I should read more!), it looks as though there was never any book deal that Ms Prejean had on the side – at one point it was touted that the alleged book deal was one of the reasons why she got fired.
Irrespective, she's certainly free to pursue a book deal now.
June 21st, 2009 @ 11:17 am
Providence? I'm not sure. When I wrote this comment there was a third lady who's name had escaped me. And since I couldn't remember it she hardly qualified as one that I did remember. Anyway, her name came to me later and it was Anita Bryant who incidentally is remembered in the same vane of not excepting deviant behavior as non-deviant. Interestingly, when the thing went down with Anita Bryant I was neck deep in heathenism. We can only hope that this event will have a similar impact on those who now find themselves where I was then. Not that it was profound but to borrow a popular leftist phrase, it did raise my awareness of what was happening to our society and I do remember thinking of her, even then, in a positive light.
June 22nd, 2009 @ 1:43 pm
I appreciate you sharing that – it's interesting to hear of how other Christians have changed their mindsets since they became believers, even from such a simple, seemingly insignificant event.
I must admit to holding as true many of the objections I responded to in my recent series, Responses to 50 Reasons Why Religion Sucks. It really isn't all that long ago when I would have happily and contentedly parroted any number of these objections without the slightest thought as to why. Then, interestingly, while most Christians from Christian households go to university and get their “Christianity” educated out of them, I took a Philosophy of Religion class and watched my new-found Christian faith take strength and grow. Why? Because every objection raised during class time I researched and found, consistently, that Christian theology and philosophy had an answer for.
June 22nd, 2009 @ 2:43 pm
I appreciate you sharing that – it's interesting to hear of how other Christians have changed their mindsets since they became believers, even from such a simple, seemingly insignificant event.
I must admit to holding as true many of the objections I responded to in my recent series, Responses to 50 Reasons Why Religion Sucks. It really isn't all that long ago when I would have happily and contentedly parroted any number of these objections without the slightest thought as to why. Then, interestingly, while most Christians from Christian households go to university and get their “Christianity” educated out of them, I took a Philosophy of Religion class and watched my new-found Christian faith take strength and grow. Why? Because every objection raised during class time I researched and found, consistently, that Christian theology and philosophy had an answer for.