Thoughts on Carrie Prejean
CommentsOn Tuesday, I was invited to appear on CNN to discuss Miss California USA and the scandal surrounding her comments when asked by Perez Hilton what she thought about gay marriage. I haven’t blogged about this yet, and since my segment got bumped I thought I’d share with the blog some of my thoughts on the situation:
1. Hilton’s question was vastly different than the typical question to a pageant contestant. They are usually pap such as:
What will you do as Miss USA to bring world peace?
How can society make the world a better place for our children?
What is the number one issue you’re concerned about and how will you address it if you win the pageant?
There aren’t questions on abortion, capital punishment, or affirmative action. What Hilton did was change the rules in a way that he knew - no matter what Prejean answered - would garner publicity for the gay marriage cause and, especially, for himself personally. He abused his role as pageant judge.
2. My friend Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse pointed out to me that the notion of a gay man judging women’s beauty jibes with my column on Playgirl and how straight women’s libidos get shaped by gay men’s sensibilities.
3. The question, which Hilton “knew” had only one “right” answer, was, in his mind, along the lines of asking about Brown vs. Board of Education or the passage of the 15th Amendment (ending slavery). I have blogged earlier about my disagreement with the racism comparison. But even if society is moving toward considering opposition to redefining marriage to be the equivalent of racism (and I’m not sure it is), it’s not there yet. Particularly in California, where a half-million residents more favored Proposition 8 than opposed it. Prejean represents the mainstream in California, yet Hilton treated her as if she had some fringe opinion.
4. I saw Rachel Maddow (with whom I was friends in college) on MSNBC make fun of the beauty contestant stumbling over herself in answering the question, using phrases like “opposite marriage” (which I now use on this Web site - I think it’s pithy, not stupid). But I don’t blame her, being a couple of votes away from winning the pageant of her dreams, and being asked an unfair question, for being extremely nervous.
Trump keeps his Miss USA PR going. . .
Prejean sticks her foot in her mouth after answering the ‘tough question’ posed by Ms Hilton. . .controversary leads to three weeks of ‘news’ for Miss USA program.
Prejean gets busted for possible skin photos and for contractual issues.
Trump calls the ‘come to Jesus meeting’ and puts forth a lengthy Press Conference and everyone is happy.
Prejean keeps her contract, but has to keep her mouth closed and can’t play with the NOM folk. Prejean is either very smart and wants to keep herself in the ‘beauty industry’, or has good legal advice that breaking her contract ‘could jeopardize future endeavors and endorsements.’
And Prejean got a meeting with the Trump, got to get teary on live television, and got to pronounce her beliefs.
Trump gets to keep his beauty queen and more PR for his Miss USA project.
Prejean, (with Trump’s spanking of the gay left,) can no longer be involved with any group such as NOM during her remaining time as Miss Cali.
Barefoot, BareChested, and silent. . .many thanks to Donald — who during Press Conference deferred to comment on gay marriage but stated he ‘is very well aware of the viewpoints on gay marriage from both sides of the aisle. ‘
but then again, more and more people had the chance to think about gay marriage.
from my comments over at Gay Patriot
http://www.gaypatriot.net/2009/05/12/donald-trump-attempts-to-bridge-carrie-prejean-fault-line/trackback/
I see nothing wrong in her using the term “opposite marriage”. Marriage has long been deifined as a covenant or legally binding committment between one man and one woman. Anything else is, in fact, is “opposite marriage”, which really means no marriage at all.
“Opposite marriage” being pithy– hmm. Hadn’t thought of that. I doubt she did either.
I haven’t yet checked out your link within point 2 and I will if I get a chance but I still think this post deserves to have this question located here: What’s the significant difference between having a gay man judge a beauty pageant and having a woman judge it?
Very interesting blog. Looking forward to checking it out!
DB: “1. Hilton’s question was vastly different than the typical question to a pageant contestant. They are usually pap such as: [...]”
My understanding is not so much. It used to be like that, but beauty competitions have been stung by criticisms that they were turning out bimbos and so have toughened up at least a bit. I haven’t been able to find past questions but Miss USA questions have involved topics like Prince Harry’s racist remarks, and Perez’s effort seems to be in line with the Miss California rules:
“Questions will be of a general nature and will be neither platform-related nor something taken directly from the private interview. The objective is to evaluate the contestant’s ability to think on her feet and answer a question of general interest to people her age, including, but not limited to, local, state and national current events.” ( http://www.misscalifornia.org/cbSite/0MissCalifornia.asp?Vwz=cb2535 )
Of course this issue is rather more than usually controversial, but it’s not as if there’s a total lack of bromides to fall back if you want to avoid giving gratuitous offence to either side. It’s just that “[...] no offense to anybody out there. But that’s how I was raised [...]” isn’t one of them.
DB: “2. My friend Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse pointed out to me that the notion of a gay man judging women’s beauty jibes with my column on Playgirl and how straight women’s libidos get shaped by gay men’s sensibilities.”
Sure. Some minor quibbles though: the Playgirl example is a bit problematic because it begs the question of whether it was ever _really_ a beefcake magazine for women in the first place (as opposed to a beefcake magazine with plausible deniability for closeted gay men). Also let’s not forget the third parties in this: Hollywood has been memorably described as gay men seducing straight men using women for bait, and to the extent that’s true the same will be true of the fashion industry. So to the extent women do want to seduce straight men, or feel as if they could, it’s not clear they shouldn’t listen to gay men, because the goal is the same. Who they probably shoudn’t listen to are self-loathing gay scolds who are uncomfortable with women having a libido in the first place.
DB: “But even if society is moving toward considering opposition to redefining marriage to be the equivalent of racism (and I’m not sure it is), it’s not there yet. Particularly in California, where a half-million residents more favored Proposition 8 than opposed it. Prejean represents the mainstream in California, yet Hilton treated her as if she had some fringe opinion.”
I don’t think there’s any suggestion that it’s a fringe opinion relative to the population as a whole, just that it’s nonetheless a hateful opinion. But since you mention it, one of the criteria for scoring is “Will young people see her as a role model who is reflective of today’s generation?” and by that standard it’s both hateful _and_ fringe.
DB: “4. I saw Rachel Maddow (with whom I was friends in college) on MSNBC make fun of the beauty contestant stumbling over herself in answering the question, using phrases like “opposite marriage” (which I now use on this Web site - I think it’s pithy, not stupid). ”
Gallantry is all very well but I think you’re kidding yourself as to the actual merits of the coinage. It sounds like the slip of the tongue it was and it doesn’t pair well with the established phrase for the thing it’s contrasted with.
DB: “But I don’t blame her, being a couple of votes away from winning the pageant of her dreams, and being asked an unfair question, for being extremely nervous.”
On a personal level I sympathize too. It sucks for her that she just happened to be brought up in an environment which, whatever its other merits, was full of traditional mindless prejudice toward gay people, and that she’d never given it any thought until she was called on it in a high-stakes situation. I wouldn’t hold her personally all that responsible except that I _have_ to hold her personally responsible. Otherwise mindless prejudice will never go away. “That’s how I was raised” _can’t_ be allowed to be an excuse.
I believe when Ms. Prejean was using the term ‘Opposite Marriage’ she was using it to refer to Hetero Marriage . . . as she was stating in her response to Ms. Hilton that in America, there is a choice of hetero ‘opposite-sex’ or homo ’same-sex’ marriage. . .
take a look around the internet if you think I am wrong.
I think she meant that the choice was about supporting marriage qua marriage or supporting the change proposed by advocates of “gay marriage”. In CA that mean either a Yes or a No vote on the marriage amendment.
Besides in CA people do have a choice of domestic partnership for which they are free to misapply the term, marriage, if, again, they so choose. But that choice is based on a false equivalency — because it lacks the core meaning of marriage so terms like “gay marriage” and “same-sex marriage” are oxymorons anyway.
Carrie Prejean politely attempted to use the novel terms of confusion that advocates of changing marriage (both in law and in culture) have pressed into the public discourse about marriage.
Chairm,
Regarding the core meaning of marriage, I composed a reply to your arguments on the “Gay marriage and unintended consequences” post at the Secular Right blog. I thought that your line of reasoning was rather interesting, and I would be interested to hear your response. (I mention it here because the comments in that thread are closed, apologies to everyone for hijacking this thread somewhat).
CO: ‘I think she meant that the choice was about supporting marriage qua marriage or supporting the change proposed by advocates of “gay marriage”.’
I doubt it. Here’s her actual remarks:
“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.”
Her apparent first thought is that a diplomatic way of answering is to emphasize choice, a favorite American value, and she does that twice in different words. So we can be quite sure that “opposite marriage” is supposed to contrast with “same-sex marriage”, not “marriage”. But then she recalls that she’s not actually for choice in the matter at all - indeed quite the contrary. So then she tries to walk it back, rather clumsily, and ends up looking rather more clueless and giving rather more offence than if she’d just said she was for traditional marriage in the first place.
Now what if miss prejean would have quoted this lead senior Republican. . .
“Lynne and I have a gay daughter, so it’s an issue our family is very familiar with,” Cheney told an audience that included his daughter. “With the respect to the question of relationships, my general view is freedom means freedom for everyone. … People ought to be free to enter into any kind of relationship they want to.”
Would be bery difficult for a lead senior Republican to speak out against Gay Marriage and incur the wrath of Cheney. . .
but their are those who voice their opposition to gay folk and SSM:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dY28jU8oCqM
The question was about every state following the choice made in the Vermont legislature. I know that SSMers have tried to make this about lack of choice but the question was indeed about political choice. Carrie Prejean was far more articulate than the rantings of Perez Hilton who felt there was a better choice of answer.
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Carlo, I left a comment at the still-open comment section under the blogpost about survey opinions. It is still in the moderation que.
Chairm, I don’t think the SR blog has a moderation queue. You may want to post it again.
CO: “The question was about every state following the choice made in the Vermont legislature. ”
I have been unclear with the section of your post that I selected to reply to - I didn’t mean to suggest that she wasn’t making a point about choice. It’s just I read you as supporting Tammy’s suggestion that “opposite marriage” was intended to refer to SSM as something opposite traditional marriage. On the contrary, I think the context makes it clear that she meant “opposite-sex marriage”. But if that’s not what you were saying then forget it.
Pithy, or just awkward, it fits because “two halves make a whole — but not just any two halves. Two opposite halves.”
Two left shoes aint exactly a “pair of shoes”.
Marty: “Pithy, or just awkward, it fits because “two halves make a whole — but not just any two halves. Two opposite halves.”
Well sure. It’s not as if it’s not a neat system, and I don’t mean to piss on it for the sake of pissing on it. It’s just that it’s built on a biological foundation whereby, as a general rule, with exceptions, the opposites are attracted to one another, and the cultural component is largely about preventing this attraction being expressed too casually. So even though we probably agree that we want _plenty_ of people to form opposite-sex couples, any argument that assumes that traditional marriage is about ensuring that _plenty_ of people form opposite sex couples is just braindead - you might as well take credit for the sun rising. So if you want to argue that _all_ people should form opposite-sex couples, you can’t get there by extrapolation, because marriage isn’t, at all, about pushing the majority into opposite-sex couples. You’ll need to give some completely independent reason why those who aren’t opposite-sex attracted should be shoehorned into opposite-sex relationships, and the supposed abstract beauty of the arrangement doesn’t cut it. After all, if you’re in an opposite-sex couple and you’re straight, and you try to tell me that you got into it because of the abstract beauty of it, I’ll call you a liar. And if you if you’re in an opposite-sex couple and you’re gay and you try to tell me that you got into it because of the abstract beauty of it, I’ll call you an idiot.
I’m just sayin, Separate isn’t Equal, Mark.
You can shoehorn same-sex couples into Marriage, but they still won’t be “equal”. Two left shoes is not “a pair of shoes”, never could be.
I’ll allow you the fictional belief that two men can marry each other, out of politeness. But please don’t insist that it would be “equal” to man+woman marriage. That is insulting.
Marty: “You can shoehorn same-sex couples into Marriage, but they still won’t be “equal”. Two left shoes is not “a pair of shoes”, never could be.”
For what purposes? If you want marriage to be a shrine to some conception of the abstract beauty of opposite-sex relationships then sure, but like I was saying, what moron would want that when it’s completely irrelevant to why people pair up or get married?
what moron would want that when it’s completely irrelevant to why people pair up or get married?
Their children, that’s who. Moron.
Marty: “Their children, that’s who.”
Why exactly would people’s children want marriage to be a shrine to the abstract beauty of opposite sex pairing when it’s completely irrelevant to why people pair up or get married?
I feel stupid even answering this — are you dense or just being argumentative?
Because ALL children know they come from one man and one woman. Even you — nothing “abstract” about it. Children aren’t why people get married — marriage exists because people have children.
Duh.
Marty: “Because ALL children know they come from one man and one woman. ”
And? People’s children will be happy if marriage is a shrine to the abstract beauty of opposite sex pairing when that abstract beauty is irrelevant to why people pair up or get married because they know they come from one man and one woman and …. So far it’s a non sequitur. Fill in the blank.
Marty: “Children aren’t why people get married — marriage exists because people have children.”
In large part, yes. So? How does making marriage a shrine to the abstract beauty of opposite-sex pairing achieve any of the things that people might have wanted to achieve with it?
While SSM is presented as a shrine of that kind, marriage means much more.