Let's all wish Carrie Prejean a Happy Birthday. Miss California USA turns 22 today, and thanks to a garbled pageant answer on national television and the support of the National Organization for Marriage, she's poised to become the new Anita Bryant before she hits 23. God help us all.
Last week I watched the movie Milk for the first time. It was a little overdue, I know, especially because I rooted for Sean Penn throughout the Oscar season never having seen his performance. I just didn't want Mickey Rourke to win for some reason.
I was happy to discover that I definitely rooted for the right guy. Sean Penn is Harvey Milk, in all his honest, unabashed and unapologetic glory. The actor's face has become fused in my mind with the real Harvey Milk's, seared in my memory long ago by the 1980s documentary The Times of Harvey Milk. But what really made me sit up straight watching the film last week was not Sean Penn's performance, but the incredible footage interspersed throughout the film of that hellraiser Anita Bryant.
I wonder if Carrie Prejean has heard of Anita Bryant. Maybe I'm wrong in assuming that the current Miss California USA has not seen the film about the first openly gay elected official in the United States, and that she does not know much about the history of the gay rights struggle in her home state and country over the course of the last century. She may not recognize the similarities between herself and Ms. Bryant, the Evangelical Christian, Oklahoma-born singer and Florida orange juice spokeswoman, who is most famous for her tireless 1977 fight to save children from the threat of being taught by homosexual teachers. Anita became a symbol. Utterly confident in her own moral rectitude and superiority, she circled the country, campaigning on a platform of Christian virtue and warning the masses that because homosexuals could not have children, they would "recruit your own."
Carrie Prejean was born ten years after Anita broke onto the scene, and nine years after the assassination of Harvey Milk. She was raised in an evangelical household in California, and her parents divorced when she was only a year old. During the Miss USA pageant, as everyone knows by now, she answered Perez Hilton's question on gay marriage by saying, "Well I think it's great that Americans are able to choose one way or the other. We live in a land where you can choose same-sex marriage or opposite marriage. You know what, in my country, in my family, I do believe that marriage should be between a man and a woman, no offense to anybody out there. But that's how I was raised and I believe that it should be between a man and a woman." I give her points for two things: first, despite coining the interesting term "opposite marriage," she is far more eloquent than Miss Teen USA South Carolina 2007 of "Such as..." fame. Second, unlike Anita Bryant, she doesn't seem particularly threatened by homosexuals. She just doesn't really think they deserve the same rights her parents took for granted when they got married.
No beauty queen has attracted so much attention since Vanessa Williams posed nude. (Of course it turns out Carrie has also posed nude, but Donald Trump says it's OK.) Perez Hilton called her response "the worst answer in pageant history." The vampiric National Organization for Marriage has jumped on her story, using her as a symbol of the intolerance of the gay marriage movement. Her sparkling smile is plastered across their website, and she appears in an ad only slightly less silly than "The Gathering Storm." NOM President Maggie Gallagher has praised her, saying she is a blameless victim of "character assassination" and holding her aloft as a soldier in the fight against fear and intolerance.
Like Anita Bryant, however, Carrie Prejean is completely intolerant of differing opinions herself. Unlike the tough-skinned Bryant, she seems genuinely hurt and offended by the criticism leveled at her. At a tearful press conference with Mr. Trump yesterday to address her nude photos (picture Anita Bryant infamously being hit with a banana cream pie), Prejean thanked those who had stood by her during her difficult month of infamy and instafame, citing the First Amendment in all sorts of confused contexts. On Monday she played to her base on Christian radio, saying that when Hilton asked the question, "I felt as though Satan was trying to tempt me in asking this question. And then God was in my head and in my heart saying: 'Do not compromise this. You need to stand up for Me and you need to share with all these people...you need to witness to them.'"
It's been an eventful month for the 22-year-old. But as NOM's Gallagher says in her defense, "you don't have to be a perfect person to have the right to stand up for marriage." Amen. But if she decides to remain in the public eye over the coming months (and I think we all know the answer to that) Ms. Prejean would do well to educate herself on the history of her home state. She might even want to take a brief look at Milk and think about how her legacy will hold up over the long haul. It is not the hero of that movie she resembles. No offense intended.
Anyone with an objective mind can tell by the tone of the discussions on the NOM site vs. the Perez Hilton site, who the 'vampiric' are.
This begs the question - does Wainwright fail to detect this because she merely believes that 'bloodsucker' is just part of Mr. Hilton's job description - or is it a case of being able to tolerate a pile of ¢rap under your nose as long as there's the faintest whiff of political familliarity?
If they can't be raised by two parents of the opposite sex, FAR better to let them rot in a warehouse or something waiting for foster parents.
Single parents should either pair off (like the Brady's) or put their kids in a basket and float them down the river in the hopes of being rescued by a nuclear family.
Perhaps you should focus your efforts in THAT arena, if that is TRULY what 'concerns' you regarding this issue.
Really, really lame.
Prop 8 did not pass, stop whinning about it.
National Organization of Marriage, what do they think the biggest threat to the institution of marriage is?
is it a few eager homosexuals who want to feel the same joy, or is it the moral vaccum in the institution itself that results in >50% divorce and countless emotionally damaged young children who are exposed to daily yelling and screaming.
Having been raised in a traditional marriage family myself, I can tell you that my self-confidence took an early hit and never quite recovered. I do not blame my parents for that because they were the product of their own environment as well.
All I am saying is that someone is genuinely interested in protecting marriage, they ought to focus on making the traditional one work, before expanding their mandate. More likely, the NOM and countless other fanatic/religious/political groups aim to milk the emotions of generally well-meaning, commonly uneducated public.
If I were gay, I personally wouldn't want to jump on the bandwagon of "marriage" because I would not want to jump on a sinking ship. More likely, A gay civil union with all the legal ramification of marriage would be a more classy and successful way to go. Let the dimwits such as Ms. Gallagher and similiar hypocritical Bible-thumping idiots run the agenda for their shrinking base.
I
Does 1984 Miss USA pageant ring a bell?
Nude photos.....resignation of Vanessa Williams because of her "breaking the contract".
I can care less about her views on gay marriage. It is the lying that I care about.
I may very well get along with Ms. Prejean. She obviously is a beautiful and intelligent woman. We can agree to disagree without becoming obnoxious.
J
Donald Trump owns it, so that probably answers my question. I wonder when the pageant will start requiring fake boobs in order to participate.
This whole issue is so damn stupid it's beyond belief.
What I CAN say is that I never met Harvey Milk - but Sean Penn made both of them beautiful.
Whine to someone who not only cares, but is stupid enough to believe the predator crying "victim!" of intolerance. If you weren't trying to kick me and my equal rights to the curb, genius, I wouldn't give a darn what your opinion is--DUH. So, when you punch someone, do you cry to mommy when they defend themselves or, god forbid, fight back?
I remember Ted Bundy did the same thing right before they executed him. "You are disrespecting me--waaaa!"
Free speech is NOT about having people agree with you. Free speech is NOT about not having to deal with social pressure when you say dumb things. Free speech IS about not getting put in jail or otherwise persecuted by the government for stating your thoughts or opinions. As Ms Prejean remains free and untouched by the government, her right to free speech has not been encumbered.
I support Ms Prejean's right to continue to make an ass of herself.
Perez Hilton is no gay rights leader, he uses the mantra of "gay rights" to justify his warped, insane, intolerant hatreds!
He is mad about all the good looking popular kids in high school who laughed at him, and it's warped, misguided anger!
He has done more harm to 'gay rights' with his insane, vulgar behavior.
This does no harm to gay rights in the long run. The 24-hour news cycle will find something new to freak out about. She'll be supplanted by a new It Girl. Perez will continue being Perez, because his success isn't based on preening for the camera.