One of the hurdles that beauty pageant contestants must hurdle effortlessly is proving they have the ability to answer polarizing questions in a way that offends no one. No one who lacks that ability deserves to win a pageant.
Carrie Prejean proved at the Miss USA pageant last spring that she is always determined to have everything her way and that she is always spoiling for a fight, so she did not deserve the crown because she is unsuited for the job. She showed her true character again during her recent interview on “The Larry King Show” (above) when he asked her a question that a gracious and/or mature woman would have seen coming and memorized five or six charming and disarming replies for and then changed the subject. (I am ripping off the “charm and disarm” expression from an episode of “The West Wing.”)
King tossed Prejean a softball that hinted at her masturbation video, which she has acknowledged exists. A pro knows that is her golden opportunity to frame the controversy her way and move on — there’s nothing inappropriate about King’s question at all because THIS IS HOW IT’S DONE. However, Prejean is not a pro, so she did not recognize her golden opportunity for what it was, and instead, she took off her mic and prepared to storm off the set — because, you know, she is just that special — or, more likely, because that is how trailer trash think real ladies behave and Prejean was aiming at aping her betters.
Well, I found Prejean’s fit of pique intolerable. I have to admit that I think Perez Hilton correctly summed up Prejean’s character when he called her “a bitch” and a “cunt” right after the Miss USA pageant last spring. I’ve asked her a question myself — he was right on the money.
But the problem I really want to call my gentle readers’ attention to is NOT whether or not Prejean is … cruel, selfish, domineering and immature.
The problem I want noticed is that the backlash by conservatives from Hilton’s questioning Prejean at the Miss USA pageant, followed by his name-calling, which ought to roll off the back of anyone in public life, SHOULD have been limited to Perez, but instead was vicious and literally murderous toward ALL gays. So, because Perez Hilton, who is FAMOUS for being bratty and rude, was bratty and rude to a beauty queen whose primary career skill is her ability to cause erections, conservatives were quick to condemn THE ENTIRE HOMOSEXUAL COMMUNITY TO LIFE-DESTROYING PERPETUAL SECOND-CLASS CITIZENSHIP. THAT is the level of backlash gays have to cope with. Oh, and we’re all supposed to be submissive and cheerful about it, or else we’ll get more where THAT came from.
In contrast, Islamist jihadist Maj. Nabil Hasan killed 13 of his fellow soldiers — including a woman whose husband and two daughters live not far from me in Havre de Grace, Maryland, Lt. Col. Juanita Warman, a 55-year-old physician’s assistant — and wounded 31 more — yet conservatives are working over-time to parse the distinctions between Muslims and Islamist jihadists AND CALLING FOR NO BACKLASH WHATSOEVER except where it can be proven a crime has been committed or a terrorist act is being planned.
Well, it strikes me that if pretty much everyone — conservatives and liberals alike, despite the real crimes of Hasan and the worlds of hurt he inflicted so maliciously in the name of his religion — is able to make those distinctions with such a provocation, that it’s time to commute the unjust and amoral sentence passed on all homosexuals that we must endure the death of a thousand cuts of second-class citizenship — which is premised solely on our likelihood of reproduction with a same-sex spouse AND the violation of the Constitutional guarantee of separation of church and state — because Perez Hilton called Carrie Prejean a couple of names that she proves over and over that she richly, richly deserves.
H/T Gateway Pundit and Breitbart TV. Celeb Maxim is a celebrity gossip Web site and has the back story on Carrie Prejean AND a link to download the Carrie Prejean sex video.
This stupid and hypocritical woman suffers from a massive case of victim envy.
She’s not the one who’s ever going to have her rights voted on.
She’s not the one who’s likely to be beaten to death in an alley by thugs.
And she can even join the military.
If Mattel came out with Human Train Wreck Barbie (with apologies to the actual doll who, as my sister showed me, has held and performed several jobs competently), she’d be the model.
And if I weren’t gay, she’d do nothing for me.
Oh come on, Cynthia. Perez Hilton is a major anus with attitude. I despise the little worm. I don’t believe for a minute that gays in general are being bashed just because Perez Hilton made a complete ass of himself over Prejean’s remarks.
And yes, Prejean is no angel but calling her a “bitch” and a “cunt” was the height of immaturity.
.-= Stogie´s last blog ..World Council of Moonbat Churches to Ring Bells to Warn of Climate Change =-.
Stogie,
I acknowledged Perez Hilton’s shortcomings. But I still think the majority of people who get to know Prejean even for a few minutes will concur with him in exactly the same language. Perez was speaking to his peeps when he said those things, and he changed his language as soon as he was thrust onto the national stage.
Plus, how stupid do you have to be not to recognize a golden opportunity pitched as a softball by Larry King — he was employing one of the conventions of TV interviews to let her put her own spin on her masturbation video — and then NOT realize he had moved on and changed the subject? How smart is it to throw a tantrum on the Larry King show and to put him down? Not smart, not smart at all.
But, yes, conservatives at every blog I read for weeks after the pageant had either bloggers or commenters, or both, who vowed that they would defend Prejean’s right to her opinion by voting against equality for gays. I felt like I was personally getting beaten up. And just this week Michelle Malkin was demonizing ALL gays for the negative behavior of a handful of gays in Maine who were vowing some vengeful forms of activism for the referendum that defeated equality for same-sex marriage.
Cynthia
Cynthia, I usually really like what you have to say, but I really think that you’re incorrect here. I agree with you that Ms. Prejean is certainly not a pro, and I don’t particularly think that she’s all that smart (I’m not trying to say that she’s dumb, just not at the above average level that a person really has to be to come over well at these things). I agree that she misbehaved on Larry King, and I agree with your position on gay marriage.
But,
“I have to admit that I think Perez Hilton correctly summed up Prejean’s character when he called her “a bitch” and a “cunt” right after the Miss USA pageant last spring. ”
I’m sorry, this goes too far. When Perez Hilton said these things, Ms. Prejean merely answered a question, and she answered it in a perfectly respectful manner. However, even if she had been less respectful, calling a woman a “cunt” or other sexual attacks merely for disagreeing with you is absolutely disgusting. I don’t care that his shtick is to be bratty and rude; this sort of thing hurts all women who wish to express a political viewpoint- don’t challenge us or we will hit you where you live. It is the exact same thing that was done to Sarah Palin, including, often, the use of that very word, and it is wrong. Disagree, poke fun, even call names, but avoid the sexual attacks. They’re beneath you.
You said: “conservatives were quick to condemn THE ENTIRE HOMOSEXUAL COMMUNITY TO LIFE-DESTROYING PERPETUAL SECOND-CLASS CITIZENSHIP. THAT is the level of backlash gays have to cope with.”
If you saw that, I’m sorry; I hate that for you. But you give no examples of it, and I, a certifiable politics junkie, can’t think of ANY incident where this occurred. I certainly don’t think that they were common in any way.
You said: “yet conservatives are working over-time to parse the distinctions between Muslims and Islamist jihadists AND CALLING FOR NO BACKLASH WHATSOEVER except where it can be proven a crime has been committed or a terrorist act is being planned.”
Again, I’m not sure I’ve seen this at all. In fact, time after time this last week I have seen the “religion of peace, my ass” style comments. (Now, liberals are, of course, parsing like crazy.) I don’t think anyone’s calling for a backlash against all Muslims (well, I’m sure somebody is, but no one I’m familar with), but a lot are expressing concerns.
Lyssa,
Thank you for your thoughtful comment.
Perez Hilton was not speaking to Prejean when he called her those names — he was gossiping with his fans via a YouTube video. He changed his language — and apologized — when he was thrust onto the national stage. So I think he deserves forgiveness.
I’m not going to look up my citations for April and May of 2009 about the backlash — I’m tired tonight and still have to make dinner and do chores — so I’ll have to keep them going forward. But it felt like a firestorm of hatred to me and it changed the way I blogged. I stopped doing linkarounds and communicating with bloggers I didn’t already know — I couldn’t tell who was going to hate me just for being a lesbian. It was depressing and sickening.
The fact that people are NOT calling for a backlash against Muslims but they DO against gays — saying things like, “you were really mean, you are not helping your cause, we’ll keep yanking away your equality from you” — is my entire point.
Cynthia
Cynthia is right. Prejean did not even deserve to be in a pageant. This time she should know better, because if all of us know what image consultants and ” damage control” and managers and so on can do for a wannabe celebrity, so could Prejean and her family. She can’t play the part of the misunderstood victim forever and pretend then to be taken seriously by attempting to leave the Larry King show. Larry King? Please…
.-= Dr. sipmac´s last blog ..Whatever it Takes for a Quick Laugh from the Audience =-.
Cynthia,
Your post was spot on. As for the alleged offensiveness of the words used to describe her, I say Perez (who I am not a fan of) didn’t go far enough.
To see the articles about this, you can click on “totalitarian social conservatism” and go back a bit.
I think all politics is bullshit.
Cynthia, I have a question for you. Why don’t my LBGT brothers and sisters hold the Afr-Amr, Latino, and other minority communites more accountable for getting LBGT civil rights laws passed? Weren’t y’all marching with us back in the day? Why aren’t more of us (I’m black) willing to march for and with y’all? Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, Why is that all the faces that we see advocating for Gay Rights are white? Why are so many black churches preaching against Gays and Gay rights (I’ve seen this with my own eyes)? I agree that the enemies of LGBT Civil rights seem to be LDS folk and their ilk. But what about AME folk? I think that your frenemies are a lot more dangerous that some realize. Good first step demanding Prez O to step up and get rid of DADT.
BTW, I’m straight and Prejean doesn’t do it for me either…
Lanny,
Why, yes, homosexuals have always marched for pretty much everyone else, but pretty much no one else marches in our parades for us. In one of the big gay marches on Washington in the late 1980’s, I think, Margaret and I sat about 100 feet from Rev. Jesse Jackson while he went on about the Rainbow Coalition, which we all really believed in and worked for. Well, Jackson forgot all about it years ago, while Al Sharpton seems busy on CNN disappearing every color from the rainbow except black. So, we worked our hearts out for the equality of people who promised us reciprocity and their support when our turn came, and now they are organizing and voting against us while illegal aliens are stampeding past us to full citizenship — even as illegals, they have more rights than we do. If you don’t see blacks advocating for homosexual equality, I expect it’s because of the intense backlash they will get from Sharpton’s organization, black churches and now Obama’s Organizing for America.
I also have the sneaking suspicion that when blacks and Latins denounce homosexuality that it’s a safe, coded way to express anti-white hatred.
Also, I keep telling liberal gays that it is the Religious Left that is their implacable foe, not the Religious Right. The Religious Left seems to me to be a coalition of the Catholic Church and evangelical Protestant churches, including the AME, as far as I can tell — the LDS (Mormons) are in the mix, but I’m not sure where. Religions need converts to grow and the easiest converts are children, so the churches do everything they can to force people toward having babies. I think that’s why this religious coalition wants to deny same-sex marriage equality and destroy gay lives through second-class citizenship — they are motivated by greed and lust for power and they need their followers to make all the babies they can. The only part I have a problem with is being denied full equality.
Lanny, I appreciate your kind words and candor.
Cynthia
Cynthia, you lost me on this one. Calling her a bitch and a cunt, as though she was asking for that question from Perez, seems like a stretch. She answered honestly, while not disparaging those who choose to support gay marriage. As you well know, Conservatives have evolved, and welcome the GLBT community, but, being intolerant of those few that have their eyes wide shut, and to call them a cunt, crosses the line, IMO.
Sybill,
I am REALLY disturbed that the amorality of punishing ALL homosexuals because Perez Hilton insulted a pretty sociopath is just whooshing right by some of the straight commenters.
Their morality goes to DEFCON 1 (the highest level) over name-calling? Really? Over name-callling? Gays must remain second-class citizens to avenge name-calling? Second-class citizenship is really and truly an all-encompassing destruction of life for homosexuals, many of whom will be effectively murdered by this vengefulness over name-calling. WHAT. IS. THE. MATTER. WITH. STRAIGHT PEOPLE?
Prejean is on record saying she expected a question on gay marriage. I found her answer extremely cruel, insulting and demeaning. Her mother is a lesbian, so it also was a lie. But one of the purposes of the interview is to see whether the contestant can answer controversial and polarizing questions diplomatically. The pageant winner is a good-will diplomat and can’t be someone who loves confrontation and domination as much as Prejean does. Prejean was weeded out because she loves insulting people and grinding her heel in their faces — that’s how it feels to us. Her litigiousness also proves she’s always spoiling for a fight.
Do you have any idea of how thick a skin gays and lesbians have to develop over name-calling? We are called the most terrible, demeaning, outrageous names all the time. The worst is the charge that we’re all pedophiles. So — you know what? Bad names just roll right off me. Plus, Margaret and I got to see one of the last performances by Eve Ensler of her play, The Vagina Monologues. In one of the last scenes she does a call-and-response with the audience about reclaiming the word, “cunt.” So for both those reasons, I just don’t get overwhelmed by being called names the way you and another commenter or two seem to do, based on how angry you got over the name-calling so that you didn’t respond appropriately to the vastly larger moral catastrophe of promoting death on a grand scale by keeping homosexuals as second-class citizens. I had hoped straight people would be more empathic about the agony that attends this life destruction — when people are hurting you so profoundly, comprehensively, and eternally, some of us can’t take it graciously and in their hurt and anger call the people hurting them names.ll
I do appreciate your raising this issue because it helps me think about it more deeply and see it from other people’s points of view, which is a great gift, so thank you for that. I do hope that we have enough common ground that we will be reading and commenting in each other’s blogs for many years to come.
Cynthia
I’m still amazed that anyone gives a rat’s ass about beauty pageants, the shallow barbie dolls competing, or Perez Hilton’s retarded snark at all. I guess most people just have more surplus give-a-crap than I do…
This particular conservative thinks that Perez is a douchebag, but I thought he was one BEFORE he called Prejean what he did (celebrity gossip hounds annoy the crap out of me).
I had a tiny bit of sympathy for Prejean at first, but after listening to her parking her Waaah-bulance wherever someone will give her camera time I’ve shoved her firmly away in the “Irrelevant Moron” file of my brain (along with Perez Hilton). May they both fade into obscurity.
And ever since I read the Koran, I consider any faithful Muslim a potential Jihadist. Doesn’t mean I want them rounded up in camps, but it sure as hell means I think we need to cut the PC crap and stop being afraid to acknowledge reality where Islam is concerned.
Lanny,
Because any attempt to take these communities to task for tolerating homophobia in their midst is met with accusations of racism. From other gays, no less. And not always nonwhite ones.
Question:
How, exactly, does one reclaim the word “cunt” by using it as an epithet for a person you clearly despise?
I am actually a big fan of yours, and have been reading you ever since you were linked by Ann Coulter. I agree that Carrie Prejean’s worldview is harmful to the LGBT community. I don’t agree with linking to a site where you can download a private video of a woman
that she did not give permission to be made available to the public.
Those are the tactics of the enemy.
I reckon the vicious backlash for all gays didn’t make it here to Texas. In the little town where I go to shop there is a nice lady who works at the local Wal Mart, we always exchange greetings when I see her. A few months back I noticed her shopping, off duty, walking hand in hand with another young lady. We said hello, and I’ve since seen her a few other times with this same young lady.
Since the Prejean flap my pal has not looked frightened at all, nor have I noticed anyone chasing her or her friend with pitchforks and torches.
I still contend that the problems between the LGBT community and straight community is caused by nonsense like that Folsom Street Fair in San Francisco and other excesses just as much as the anti-gay hysteria you keep claiming is raging through us rednecks. I’m about as redneck as it comes (actually it’s not that are necks are so red, it’s just a reflection off the backs of our ears) and I’ve yet to do anything worse than mildly disagree with some of the political aims of the organised gay groups.
Peter,
I deserve better than to have my work positioned as “the anti-gay hysteria you keep claiming is raging through us rednecks.” That is a straw man tactic.
Just because someone you say “hello” who looks OK to you does not mean that second-class citizenship is not damaging or destroying her life. Second-class citizenship is a death of a thousand cuts. For one thing, I recently posted about the New York Times — not everything they publish is wrong — study showing that gays have to pay up to half a million more dollars over the course of a lifetime than straight people do just because we cannot marry and have our marriages legally recognized at both the state and federal level. For another, marriage, adoption and service in the military all allow people to build their lives. The ability to serve openly in the military potentially would save the lives of the teens who now die because their parents threw them out for being gay — as Randall Terry discarded his gay son and Alan Keyes threw away his lesbian daughter (the last straw was her speaking publicly about the death of one of her gay friends who died as a result of being thrown out on the streets by his parents for being gay).
Have there been no times in your life when you and Linda Lou would have split up if your lives were not so deeply interwoven due to your marriage and/or the fact that, due to your marriage, splitting up would be so much hassle and so financially devastating that you stayed together and somehow got through your rough patch?
As your Parkinson’s advances, isn’t it a huge comfort and support to you that you have a wife and children who are there for you? And don’t they serve as magnets for additional friends and relatives to be part of your support system? Research on cancer patients definitively concludes that the ones with large support systems live longer with a higher quality of life than those who have little or no support system.
Speaking of support systems, mine is my father. He is 93 and in failing health. Do the math.
I know I absolutely would be dead from sleep apnea if I had not had Margaret. I still don’t know if I’m going to recover enough to live much longer. I have not discussed my challenges from hypoxic brain damage or depression here. But I definitely would have died in my thirties or forties if I had been on my own.
It is not hyperbole to say that forcing homosexuals into second-class citizenship is murder by a thousand cuts. If you are truly a moral person, you will stop doing it by supporting equality for homosexuals. Now.
Cynthia
That is not, I should have mentioned, to say that Prejean is any kind of leader, she actually seems kind of dim. And while I have no particular animus about a young woman, um, pleasuring herself, it seems kind of strange that she would have multiple tapes of it out there. What, she taped herseld so she could watch her favorite person getting off?
I’m ambivalent about gay marriage, but I do know one thing: There’s nothing more conservative than an overwhelming sense of entitlement.
Jim Treacher,
Thanks for coming to my humble abode — I enjoy your work, as you can see since I have your blog in my newsfeed.
But I can’t really tell which way you are going with your comment, “There’s nothing more conservative than an overwhelming sense of entitlement.” To me, it is Carrie Prejean who has the sense of entitlement and I have been asserting all along that she will say or do anything to get the fame, power and money to which she feels entitled. I have never believed that she had a moral center and was saying what she truly believed — in my opinion, she said what she thought would get her what she wanted. In addition, one of the purposes of the Q&A part of a pageant competition is to weed out the bomb throwers who antagonize people and the dimwits who would be certain to embarrass the pageant enterprise. Gay marriage was a polarizing issue in California at the time of the Miss USA pageant and Prejean was Miss California USA. It was her JOB to have a diplomatic and non-polarizing answer to the question of what she thought about gay marriage. She showed she was a bomb thrower instead of a diplomat and only diplomats get the job of Miss USA. She self-destructed.
Or did you mean that homosexuals are the ones with the “overwhelming sense of entitlement”? It rather seems like you are saying that like it’s a bad thing. Homosexuals are working for equality under the law. It is shocking to us that the rationale for forcing us into second-class citizenship is that we cannot directly conceive children with a same-sex partner. I am not going to be shamed by anyone about having an “overwhelming sense of entitlement” to equality. And the better I understand conservatism and its embrace of liberty, the more it seems to me that homosexuals fare much better as fiscal conservatives on the Right than they ever will on the Left.
I do hope you visit again and clarify what you meant.
Cynthia
Keep hope alive!
.-= Jim Treacher´s last blog ..JTlol: "Andrew Sullivan is, on many issues, an interesting writer." [citation needed] http://j.mp/4bqVy1 =-.
Seriously, though: I’m not married. I have no intention of getting married. Does that make me a “second-class citizen”? Will I be turned away at the lunch counter? Is there a separate drinking fountain for me?
I am not going to be shamed into giving you something you say you’re entitled to, just because you say you’re entitled to it.
.-= Jim Treacher´s last blog ..JTlol: "Andrew Sullivan is, on many issues, an interesting writer." [citation needed] http://j.mp/4bqVy1 =-.
Jim Treacher,
I appreciate your coming back to explain.
Are you a new reader? I do not use arguments based on shame or accusations of bigotry or hatred to advocate for homosexual equality. I began to educate straight people about what it’s like to be gay at about the age of 20, which is now 36 years ago, when I was a student at the University of Michigan. What I find gives straight people that, “Aha!” moment that leads them to support homosexual equality are love and a comprehensive understanding of why it’s the right thing to do. So, here I am in my little blog, making myself all lovable, explaining my case for homosexual equality, and doing my best to love, respect and see the highest good in everyone who comes here.
I am giggling a bit that you think your examples refute my case. This is why I keep explaining the gay experience. Straight people just can’t imagine how comprehensive and insidious the devastation of second-class citizenship is for homosexuals. First, if you are straight, you have the right to marry, you have just committed to not exercising it. There’s an obvious difference between having a right you choose not to use and not having it in the first place. However, it is a red flag to me that you may be bitter about marriage in the first place, so you really cannot relate at all to the idea that homosexuals are fighting for same-sex marriage equality — in other words, to have something you reject strongly for yourself. In one of my posts I explained that one reason I decided to stop talking to liberals about marriage equality was because my first job was always to sell them on the goodness of marriage and every single day I would have to start over. At least more conservatives love and understand marriage, so a LOT more of them get why homosexuals want same-sex marriage equality.
As for your example of being turned away at the lunch counter, ironically, generally SINGLE homosexuals can get service in a public accommodation like a restaurant — even though there is no federal law guaranteeing our right to freedom from discrimination in access to public accommodations (i.e., restaurants, stores, concerts, parks, recreation facilities, etc.), housing or employment — but we are more likely to get thrown out as COUPLES for doing simple things that straight people think nothing of, like holding hands or an arm around the spouse’s shoulder.
You build separate drinking fountains for groups you perceive as lesser than yours. That would be a step up for us. You don’t build separate drinking fountains for people you want dead. Also, there’s the issue of so many of us appearing straight, which makes discerning who can and can’t use the drinking fountain/rest room/whatever too much of a hassle.
The coalition of religions fighting homosexual equality do not have pure motives for doing so, as I’ve explained in other posts. Right now their argument seems to be that marriage is NOT about love and NOT about the ability of the couple to build a life together and is only about producing children and should only be reserved for couples where the spouses are directly able to produce children with one another. And my argument in reply — besides, “You’ve got to be kidding, that’s all you’ve got?” — is that the likelihood of a couple directly to produce children together is NOT a sufficient reason to deprive the couple of 1,138 federal rights, uncounted state and local rights, uncounted privileges businesses reserve for married couples and to impose almost $500,000 in extra fees, taxes and expenses that married couples do not have to pay.
Because I say so.
Cynthia