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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Perez Hilton ‘Floored’ by Miss California ABC News -
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Lawsuit over gay-marriage speech at LA City College spurs reactions
“God Hates Gays,” their signs read. Memories came flooding back of fleeing New Jersey after his mother discovered his sexual orientation and threw him out of the family.
The protesters appeared in support of Jonathan Lopez, a Christian student who has sued the Los Angeles Community College District, alleging that an instructor kept him from finishing a classroom speech about his religious beliefs and opposition to same-sex unions. Lopez has said he was discriminated against because of his religious views.
See
Lawsuit over gay-marriage speech at LA City College spurs reactions
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Mormons take lead on ‘social’ bills
CHEYENNE — Mormons comprise more than 10 percent of the membership of the Wyoming Legislature, yet Mormon lawmakers are not known for voting as a bloc or working together to promote legislation.
That may be changing.
Mormons are taking a higher profile this session in promoting bills linked to controversial social issues including assisted suicide, gay marriage and abortion.
Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are the primary sponsors of bills dealing with all three topics, and a cadre of about eight LDS lawmakers have teamed up as the original co-sponsors of six related bills.
Members of that group say their collective support of the bills is more coincidence than strategy, and they insist that no Mormon caucus exists in the Legislature.
But watchdog and social-issue advocacy groups say it could be a troubling sign if LDS legislators are working to inject their religious beliefs into the lawmaking process.
See Mormons take lead on ‘social’ bills
.Casper Star-Tribune Online – Casper,WY,USA
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ACLU Asks Court To Stop Misuse Of Taxpayer Dollars In Trafficking Victims Program
BOSTON – The American Civil Liberties Union today asked a federal court to require the United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to ensure that funds distributed through the Trafficking Victims Protection Act are not being used to impose religiously based restrictions on reproductive health services. Since 2006, HHS has allowed the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops to limit, based on its religious beliefs, the types of services trafficking victims receive with taxpayer dollars.
“Human trafficking is basically a form of modern-day slavery,” said Brigitte Amiri, staff attorney with the ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project. “There are many organizations that are deeply committed to assisting trafficking victims; our government should ensure that these organizations can provide the full range of needed services, including reproductive health care.”
Through the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, the federal government distributes funds to cover an array of services needed by the more than 14,000 individuals, predominantly women, who are brought into the United States annually and exploited for their labor, including in the commercial sex industry. Many trafficking victims experience extreme violence and sexual assault at the hands of their traffickers. Some become pregnant as a result of rape and some contract sexually transmitted infections, including HIV, according to today’s legal papers.
“For more than two years, the Bush administration has sanctioned the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ blatant misuse of taxpayer dollars,” said Daniel Mach, Director of Litigation for the ACLU Program on Freedom of Religion and Belief. “It has allowed USCCB to impose its religious beliefs on trafficking victims by prohibiting sub grantees from ensuring access to services like emergency contraception, condoms, and abortion care.”
Since April 2006, HHS, which administers funds allocated by the federal Trafficking Victims Protection Act, has awarded USCCB grants ranging from $2.5 million to $3.5 million annually to support organizations that provide direct services to trafficking victims. As part of its sub granting program, USCCB prohibits, based on its religious beliefs, grantees from using federal funds to provide or refer for contraceptive or abortion services. USCCB sub grants to service organizations throughout the country, including to providers in Massachusetts.
“We are asking the court to stop this misuse of taxpayer dollars and to protect the health and safety of trafficking victims,” said Sarah Wunsch, staff attorney with the ACLU of Massachusetts. “Trafficking victims need comprehensive and compassionate care to gain their freedom and lead safe and healthy lives.”
The case is ACLU of Massachusetts v. Leavitt (Civ. No. 09-10038), filed in the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts. Lawyers on the case include Amiri with the ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project; Mach and Heather Weaver with the ACLU Program on Freedom of Religion and Belief; Rose A. Saxe with the ACLU AIDS Project; and Wunsch with the ACLU of Massachusetts.
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NEWSWEEK COVER: The Religious Case for Gay Marriage – “Religious Objections to Gay Marriage are Rooted Not in the Bible at All”
Newsweek Poll Shows Two-Thirds of People Who See Gay Marriage as a Religious Matter Oppose it
NEW YORK, NY — The latest Newsweek Poll shows growing public support for gay marriage and civil unions, with a number of factors playing a role in swaying people one way or the other. According to the poll, 62 percent of Americans say religious beliefs play an important role in shaping their views on gay marriage. “According to the survey, two-thirds of those who see marriage as primarily a legal matter support gay marriage. On the other hand, two-thirds of those who see it as mostly a religious matter (or equal parts religious and legal) oppose gay marriage.” Religion Editor Lisa Miller examines this issue in the December 15 cover, “The Religious Case for Gay Marriage” (on newsstands Monday, December 8), and writes that “not since 1860, when the country’s pulpits were full of preachers pronouncing on slavery, pro and con, has one of our basic social (and economic) institutions been so subject to Biblical scrutiny … All the religious rhetoric, it seems, has been on the side of the gay-marriage opponents, who use Scripture as the foundation for their objections.” A mature view of scriptural authority requires the ability to move beyond literalism, as common practice changes and evolves over time. “Religious objections to gay marriage are rooted not in the Bible at all, then, but in custom and tradition,” Miller writes.
Miller writes that the argument against gay marriage involves the idea that the Bible and Jesus define marriage as between one man and one woman, and homosexuality is in opposition to Scripture. To which there are two obvious responses: First, neither the Bible nor Jesus says any such thing. And second, no sensible modern person wants marriage — theirs or anyone else’s — to look in its particulars anything like what the Bible describes. “‘Marriage’ in America refers to two separate things, a religious institution and a civil one, though it is most often enacted as a messy conflation of the two. As a civil institution, marriage offers practical benefits to both partners: contractual rights having to do with taxes; insurance; the care and custody of children; visitation rights; and inheritance. As a religious institution, marriage offers something else: a commitment of both partners before God to love, honor, cherish each other — in sickness and in health, for richer and poorer — in accordance with God’s will.” Miller argues that the Bible offers no reason why gays and lesbians should not be married, in both civil and religious terms — and a number of excellent reasons why they should.
“We cannot look to the Bible as a marriage manual, but we can read it for universal truths as we struggle toward a more just future,” Miller writes. “The Bible offers inspiration and warning on the subjects of love, marriage, family and community. It speaks eloquently of the crucial role of families in a fair society and the risks we incur to ourselves and our children should we cease trying to bind ourselves together in loving pairs.”
Also in the cover package, Senior Writer Lorraine Ali tells the story of a custody battle between two women who were joined in a Vermont civil union. Their relationship failed, one partner decided she was no longer gay and now they’re fighting for custody of the daughter they both love. The case, Miller v. Jenkins, has important implications for gay parents everywhere.
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Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2008/12/newsweek-cove…
