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Loading ...Miss Calif. critical of gay marriage at Miss USA Pageant
04.20.2009 9:14am EDT
(Las Vegas, Nevada) Miss North Carolina USA Kristen Dalton was crowned Miss USA 2009 on Sunday, beating out 50 other beauty queens in the live pageant televised from Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino in Las Vegas.
The 22-year-old aspiring motivational speaker and entertainer from Wilmington edged out first runner-up Miss California USA Carrie Prejean, of San Diego, and second runner-up Miss Arizona USA Alicia-Monique Blanco, of Phoenix.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,” 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!”
The pageant had enjoyed a scandal-free year until earlier this month, when Miss Universe 2008 Dayana Mendoza was skewered for a blog posting from a trip to Guantanamo Bay. The entry described having “aloooot of fun” at a base that houses the notorious military prison; it was later deleted from the pageant’s Web site.
The contest, which is owned by NBC and reality TV mogul Donald Trump, was hosted by “Access Hollywood” co-anchor Billy Bush and Nadine Velazquez of the NBC sitcom “My Name is Earl.” This year’s judges included “Saturday Night Live” cast member Kenan Thompson, “Dancing with the Stars” winner Kelly Monaco and gossip blogger Perez Hilton.
This is hilarious! Who organizes and produces beauty pageants? Gays!
Some people are very ignorant. Miss California could have given another type of answer.
For the Adam and Steve comment…
Unfortunately for these people, they don’t read their Bible closely. In Genesis 2:19-20, God created animals and paraded them before Adam because “it was not good for Adam to be alone” prior to creating Eve and it was decided “there was not a helper compareable to him”. Adam had a say in this. God didn’t just decide it for him or he wouldn’t have brought them before Adam. Sounds to me like God is open to a “compareable” helper more than stuck on the male/female thing. And God paraded them before Adam to let him have a look and then created Eve from what was suitable FOR ADAM the individual. So, the lesson of this is that even God let Adam have a say in what is suitable for him, so who are these people to decide what a compareable helper is for anyone but themselves?
So, if you are going to debate these people who take the Bible literally, read the whole thing and throw back at them the parts they ignore. It will show them what ignorant lemmings they are to believe things they were taught without checking things out for themselves.
P.S. Don’t forget the part in the Bible about shellfish being an abomination before God (Leviticus 11:10-11). Tell them that instead of protesting Gay Marriage maybe they should be protesting seafood restaurants. LOL
Hopefully she will find a nice older man with lots of money to marry. I mean that is what these silly demeaning contest are all about anyway.
Civil Marriage is about a contract between two people that comes with goverment benifits that did not exist when multiple women were traded into something like slavey, in exchange for livestock.
So many of these people who are so sure of the one man, one woman thing do not know their history or their scripture.
Just because women were oppressed for thousands of years did not make that right either.
Tom in Long Beach
“That’s the way I was raised”. In other words, the prejudice I learned as a child still determines my decisions as an adult, to deny equality to a minority of the population I don’t understand. At least she said “I think that I believe”, indicating she isn’t sure, so maybe education can overcome her childhood prejudice. Overcoming negative beliefs that were instilled as a child is difficult. We still have a lot of educating to do.
Robert of NYC is spot on.
“We live in a land where you can choose same-sex marriage or opposite marriage.” No, we don’t. If that statement were true, I wouldn’t care as much about her personal opinion. She obviously doesn’t know too much about the country she’s supposed to be representing.
First of all, the bible makes no mention of the word “marriage” in either old (jewish) or new (christian) testaments. It is merely implied by certain statements but categorically does not mention the word.
Whatever one’s religious beliefs, they should not and must not trample on the basic civil rights of same-sex couples to be allowed the right to be joined in a civil marriage that has absolutely nothing to do with religious marriage.
Ms. USA is a hypocrite if she claims that she meant no offense by her remarks. Of course she meant to offend, its part of the double standard used by religious bigots of her ilk. If her’s and others’ views that marriage is solely for the purpose of procreation and I suspect it is, then [they] must also accept the contention that opposite sex couples who choose not to procreate or can’t should also be denied the right to marry. The problem with these people is they want it both ways. They’ll cherry pick this and that from the book of fairtyales, reject bits that they’re not comfortable with or consider not compatible with modern living while deliberately singling out a verse in Leviticus to use an argument against marriage equality. Its so transparent what they’re about.
I recently took another look at Genesis, the first of five books in the old testament and the Adam & Eve creationist fable. In it, God or whatever supposedly took a rib from Adam while he was in a deep sleep and out of it created a woman. Christians who accept the scripture as they claim they do believe that to be the first indication of “marriage” supposedly ordained by their god. That of course is like everything else in the book of conflicts and contradictions, arguably questionable and open to interpretation among the rest of the references that these same morons and idiots use to justify discrimination. What an airhead she is. If she claims to be a christian, according to scripture she shouldn’t be flaunting her flesh in front of men.
That question was too controversial to be asked at the inane Miss USA Pageant. The show is hardly Meet The Press. A better question might be, “Are your fake boobs made from silicon or saline?”
Like Ben said, it was justa matter of stating personal belief. I can’t say I strongly care one way or the other. I mean, have these pagents been in any way relavant since the 80’s?
I’m sure Miss New Mexico’s mother made points with Perez Hilton by quoting the Gospell according to Donna Summer.
“In the Bible it says marriage is between Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve!”
It’s pointless to argue reason with kind of mentality.
She was expressing a personal opinion about what she thinks marriage is. She wasn’t even talking about the legality of it. She even phrased it in terms of a personal choice. That’s EXACTLY how it should be.
Jesus, people, chill out.
And on a side-note, frankly, I’m not sure why anyone would watch this pageant (or any pageant in general).
Thanks for the follow up to the fights in the lobby — that’s hilarious. Miss USA is the only contest that shows the scores on-screen as it goes along; if you followed NC and CA were 1/2 all night. I was disappointed in CA’s answer but she was unlucky to get it, the person who won probably feels the same way. Pageant people are generally conservative Christians for some unknown reason — believing in fantasies and princesses maybe?
Tell Charmaine Koonce that in the Bible marriage is not between ‘Adam & Steve’ but nor was it between ‘Adam & Eve’.
In the Bible women are objects owned by men.
You Jesus freaks try to get it right… then argue
The question should not have been asked in the first place. No matter what she answered it would have made the news and ticked off someone.