Tel-Chai Nation: Politicized beauty pageant

The crappy AP covers the recent Miss USA pageant, and it seems like they can't keep themselves from focusing on the political slant that shouldn't have been allowed or addressed following the winner's crowning. When Miss California was being interviewed at one point during the competition, the gay blogger Perez Hilton just had to ask her questions about her take on gay-lesbian issues:

If there is a YouTube moment from Sunday's show, it may be Miss California's answer to a question about legalizing same-sex marriage. The tall blonde stumbled some before giving an answer that appeared to please the pageant audience.

"We live in a land where you can choose same-sex marriage or opposite marriage," [Carrie] Prejean said. "And you know what, I think 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."

Some in the audience cheered, others booed. The answer sparked a shouting match in the lobby after the show.

"It's ugly," said Scott Ihrig, a gay man, who attended the pageant with his partner. "I think it's ridiculous that she got first runner-up. That is not the value of 95 percent of the people in this audience. Look around this audience and tell me how many gay men there are."

Charmaine Koonce, the mother of Miss New Mexico USA Bianca Matamoros-Koonce, argued back.

"In the Bible it says marriage is between Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve!"

I think Miss California's answer was pretty good (oh, and did I mention she's really hot? Yum), and that jerk who went out of his way to claim that the audience is chock full of homosexuals should be ashamed of himself. But this was apparently why the winner was Miss North Carolina and not Miss California. Hot Air has some more on this subject, and I have to say I'm disappointed that the contest staff would ever invite Hilton to be a judge or even involve politically-related items in this to begin with. Just look what he called the lady afterwards. Some class he's got, using profanity like that. And after supposedly apologizing, he went back on it by invoking the c-slur. I think there's grounds for a lawsuit here.

Prejean has been interviewed more on TV about this. While I think she does a good job here too, I do wonder if gay marriage opponents should try to argue from more than just a religious perspective - is it that hard to say that homosexuality is simply abnormal behavior? Nevertheless, this could be a PR bonanza for gay marriage opponents.

Andrea Tantaros (via Hot Air Headlines) asks why it's okay for liberals like the president and the veep to say they're against gay marriage but not a conservative female. But even more importantly, she tells that the Miss USA pageant is a for-profit production owned by Donald Trump, clearly not a champion of women's rights if he too is defending the creepy Hilton's misogynist tirades. Any business agents with common sense would be advised not to invest in Trump's trash anymore.

Update: Power Line is asking why nothing is wrong with protesting bailouts, another question asked to Miss North Carolina, but something is wrong with implying you're against gay marriage in this politicized profit contest. Good question.

Update 3: here's another interview with the sexy Prejean on Neil Cavuto's show, via Gateway Pundit: