Miss California sparks outrage over gay marriage remarks
Mixing a beauty pageant with politics is a recipe for disaster. You could make a strong case for it, anyway.
The two merged last night at the site of the Miss USA pageant in Las Vegas. The result was similar to the fallout after the Miss Teen USA pageant in 2007 when Miss South Carolina gave the greatest non-answer answer perhaps in American history. Both times the non-winner of a pageant got all the attention the next day.
Outrage
But unlike the pageant two years ago, the contestant in the crossfire didn’t give a nonsensical (and wildly entertaining) answer. The contestant last night, California’s Carrie Prejean, was too articulate in the minds of many and led to some flaring tempers (similar to Janeane Garofalo’s flare-up on Keith Olbermann’s show the other night).
The question posed to the contestant couldn’t be any more incendiary: gay marriage.
Asked judge Perez Hilton to Prejean, “Vermont recently became the 4th state to legalize same-sex marriage. Do you think every state should follow suit. Why or why not?”
Observers quickly learned that in Hilton’s mind there was only one correct answer. And Prejean picked the wrong one.
“Well I think its great that Americans are able to choose one or the other,” she said. “We live in a land where you can choose same-sex marriage or opposite marriage. And you know what, in my country, in my family, I think that I believe that a marriage should be between a man and a woman. No offense to anybody out there but that’s how I was raised and that’s how I think it should be between a man and a woman. Thank you very much.”
Prejean was greeted with a mixed reaction from the audience. Boos followed by applause. And the reactions didn’t stop at the pageant. It went into overtime.
Worst answer
Perez then blasted her on his video blog calling it the “worst answer in pageant history.” He also made comments that he has since apologized for. Now he’s asked her out for coffee to “talk.”
The directors of the Miss California pageant condemned her answer on Monday morning.
“As co-executive director of Miss CA USA and one of the leaders of the Miss CA family, I am personally saddened and hurt that Miss CA USA 2009 believes marriage rights belong only to a man and a woman,” wrote Keith Lewis on Hilton’s blog. “Although 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. Religious beliefs have no place in politics in the Miss CA family.”
Sticking by it
Does she regret the answer? Not at all.
“I was raised in a way that you can never compromise your beliefs and your opinions for anything,” she told AccessHollywood.
Further, she informed the entertainment site that her sister is a gay rights activist in the Air Force. By the way, her sister was more sympathetic than Hilton.
“She was just in my hotel room and she said, ‘Sis, I’m not offended by anything that you said. We have two different opinions and I love you because of it. I love you because you stood up for what was right, and it’s not a matter of being gay or not gay, it’s a matter of you competing for Miss USA and getting a question and answering it to the best of your ability.”
On one area both Hilton and Prejean agree: her answer killed her chances of winning the competition.
“She lost it because of that question. She was definitely the front-runner before that,” Hilton told ABCNews.com
“It did cost me my crown,” she concurred. “I wouldn’t have had it any other way. I said what I feel. I stated an opinion that was true to myself and that’s all I can do.”
See Miss California sparks outrage over gay marriage remarks @ Christian Science Monitor - Also:
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Miss USA Scores Controversy, Not Ratings E! Online -
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Ruling could mean civil unions for all in Calif.
he California Supreme Court could decide that there are two kinds of same-sex couples: those who can’t get married, and those who already did.
A ruling that upholds both voters’ November decision to ban gay marriage and the 18,000 same-sex marriages conducted earlier in California could come off as a safe compromise. But it also promises to keep alive an issue that has split the state as few others have.
Such a decision would give same-sex marriage advocates an avenue to pursue a federal appeal, and an argument for compelling the state to, as Associate Justice Ming Chin put it, “get out of the marriage business.”
Justices on the high court appear hesitant to overturn Proposition 8, while also reluctant to invalidate same-sex marriages performed before it passed, legal observers agreed Friday.
During Thursday’s oral arguments on a trio of lawsuits seeking to overturn the ban, Chin and Chief Justice Ronald George seemed to anticipate the difficulty in reconciling the state constitution’s promise of equality with its commitment to giving voters wide discretion to pass laws.
See Ruling could mean civil unions for all in Calif.
The Associated Press
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Subcommittee on gay-rights ordinance to meet Friday
KALAMAZOO — A subcommittee formed to study a possible compromise in the city of Kalamazoo’s recently rescinded gay-rights ordinance will conduct its first meeting Friday.
Commissioners David Anderson, Don Cooney and Stephanie Moore will review means for getting public input regarding the ordinance that was meant to protect gays, lesbians, bisexual and transgender people from discrimination in city housing, public accommodations and employment.
The city repealed the ordinance last month, but Kalamazoo Mayor Bobby Hopewell said he still hoped to find a compromise.
See Subcommittee on gay-rights ordinance to meet Friday
Kalamazoo Gazette – MLive.com, MI -
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Civil unions reawaken gay marriage divisions in Hawaii
The decade-old battle lines over same-sex marriage in Hawaii are being redrawn as lawmakers consider civil unions.
Opponents of civil union measures say it’s just same-sex marriage in a different package. Supporters say public opinion has shifted since Hawaii became the first state to ban gay marriage in its constitution.
An overflow crowd came to testify on one of several measures that would give same-sex partners rights through civil unions much like those in legal marriage.
“My wife got sick not long ago, she was in the hospital, no one questioned my right to be there by her side,” said Eric Gill, representing the Local 5 union.
Opponents stood sharply against any other rights beyond the reciprocal beneficiaries status conferred as a compromise after Hawaii’s gay marriage ban.
“You will be circumventing the will of the 70 percent of the people who voted your constituents who set you a strong and clear message by their vote to preserve traditional marriage,” said opponent Honolulu City Councilmember Gary Okino.
“The public opinion on this issue has changed dramatically,” said proponent Alan Spector of the Family Equality Coalition. “Today in 2009 this is not the controversial issue that is was in the 1990s.”
“If we feel that the tide has changed and that the people of Hawaii are now saying that we want same-sex marriage, then let’s put it to a (public) vote,” said Lt. Gov. Duke Aiona, an opponent of civil unions.
See Civil unions reawaken gay marriage divisions
KHON2 – Honolulu,HI,USA
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Cleveland Approves Gay Domestic Partner Registry
Cleveland City Council approved a domestic partner registry for gay and straight couples at its Monday session.
Passage of the registry was difficult in a state where voters passed one of the toughest gay marriage bans in the country four years ago.
The non-binding registry lacks the serious muscle of marriage or even civil unions; any benefits extended to couples would be strictly voluntary. But gay rights groups contend that in a state like Ohio, where city leaders have been hobbled by a broad constitutional amendment that forbids extending any marriage-like benefits to gay couples, it is a good compromise.
See Cleveland Approves Gay Domestic Partner Registry
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Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2008/12/cleveland-app…
