Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Miss California's response to Perez Hilton's question

The Miss USA Pageant was a couple of days ago on TV - it's been a busy couple of days for me and I've barely had an opportunity to blog so this is old-ish news but I wanted to take an opportunity and comment on it. Here's the video to catch those of you up who aren't famiilar with this situation:



Now here's my thinking -

1. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion and the US, much like my country of Canada, is a wonderfully free country in that sense. However, given the US is made up of a very diverse group of people, and Miss USA, whatever we believe about beauty pageants, goes on to represent the US at Miss Universe, and represents the quintessential American Woman, she stands for everyone, gay or straight, and therefore needs some level of political correctness and tolerance.

2. The question was controversial and not your typical 'I want world peace' kind of question, but the Miss USA folks knew what they were doing bringing Perez Hilton in as a panelist and vetted his question before he asked it on air. It was therefore fair game.

3. No one asked Miss California to lie or say she was in favour of gay marriage; but simply saying she felt those views were personal and best expressed at the ballot box, for example, would have been true to her God and her beliefs as well, while expressing tolerance and understanding for others who might not share her lifestyle or her views.

Just sayin'.

2 comments:

Nomad said...

Perez Hilton is a hypocrite -- of course the question was about personal belief, just look at how he's reacting

SARcasm said...

Yes - the question was controversial and I'm not so naive as to believe Perez Hilton in himself would have accepted anything other than an unequivocal 'yes I am against gay marriage'. And I'm not saying she should have been dishonest - but that's the definition of controversial questions, and on a content level she'd have raised a crap-storm and had people disagreeing with her either way. So given that -

My perspective, and I'm assuming the perspective of the panel of judges, is, there's a less 'hit them with a sledgehammer' way of answering this question, on either side. This should never have been a 'I am for gay marriage and anyone who isn't is a bigot' question, nor should it have been a 'I am against gay marriage' question; it was a 'Can I answer this question honestly at the same time as being fair to everyone I will represent as Miss USA' question.

Hopefully that makes sense.