Miss California Carrie Prejean Keeps Crown; Perez Hilton: Loser

 

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Today, Donald Trump of the Trump Corporation and the owner of the Miss Universe Pageant system (which includes Miss California) briskly walked into a press conference held in the lobby of Trump Tower in New York City and announced that Miss California, Carrie Prejean was keeping her crown. Prejean came under fire by uber blogger Perez Hilton for answering his question of her stand on Gay Marriage when she responded - after making it clear she didn't mean to offend anyone - that marriage is between a man and a woman.

That statement sparked Hilton to use his blog and videos to attack Prejean, calling her some really bad names. Here's the video that started it all (warning, language):



Other bloggers took up his voice and within two days after the comment the Internet was abuzz with abusive posts about the beauty queen. Then Prejean was sought out by, and did not refuse to work with, conservative groups working against the passage of Gay Marriage. Then and suddenly file after photo file of a topless Prejean was leaked to the Internet on TheDirty.com and a new charge, that of violation of her contract where she stated she never posed nude, took center stage. Finally, the directors of the Miss California pageant held a firebrand news conference Monday denoucing Prejean, but forgetting that the entire organization was owned by the one person who had final say: Donald Trump.

Carrie Prejean in her own words, in full:

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As "trite" as this entire affair may be to some, it's vitally important in the course of American Culture. Why? Because the issue ignited anti-Gay Marriage activists simply due to the way Prejean was treated by activists, led by Perez Hilton. His behavior - amplified by the Internet - may have set back the progress of change in state laws to allow Gay Marriage by two election periods.

At this point, the song "Money changes everything" comes to my mind, but back to the subject. Trump said the photos were acceptable. Moreover, Trump got the Miss California directors Kevin Smith and Shanna Moakler to come to an agreement with Prejean, who agreed to carry out her duties.

I just hope that Shanna Moakler and Kevin Smith will restore Prejean's photo to the Miss California website. She's no where to be seen as of this writing, anywhere on the site. I guess they expected Trump to remove Prejean. Didn't happen.

For heteros who back Gay Marriage like myself, this episode was a watershed moment in sparking a conversation we as a country need to have. For me, this matter is one of a civil right for a person to marry and man or a woman at any point in their lives. The uncharted conversation is that some women and men move in and out of Gay or Lesbian status and I've been personally impacted by this. As I've stated before, I've had girlfriends who at first said they were Lesbian then slept with me, then married a man. So what, is my response. But it's not the central conversation; it should be.

I think the problem is in order to make the case for "equal rights" Gay activists long ago made the case that being Gay was a genetic presdispostion then compared it to being "of color", which set off the political problems we see today. The fact is people chose to behave a certain way based on who they fall in love with regardless of the sex of the person. Some of us, like myself and Prejean, are used to male-female parings, but where we differ is I don't believe everyone has to live as I do. That written, the real question is "Does a person have the right to marry whom they want to male or female?"

I think the answer's "yes" but Perez Hilton's keeping us from getting to "yes" in the future. Today, he called Prejean "ignorant" and "a stupid woman" on HLN, upsetting the hosts of the show. (And even many of the comments on his own blog are against him.)

His childish behavior is "his thing" as Trump said today. All of us in the media commentary business have "our thing" and regardless of how you feel about it, it draws eyeballs, especially for Hilton. So he's empowered but this time he made a mistake he will not personally feel but will observe politically as time marches on. My prayer for the future is that activists on both sides don't take up arms and attack the other person. I hope Hilton leads the charge in calming the waters, but I doubt it.

Gay Marriage Issue Will Revive The GOP

 

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Gay Marriage: the act of a man marrying a man or a woman marrying a woman will be the issue that revives the Republican Party.

Consider that for the first time, more Americans - including myself - support Gay Marriage than oppose it 49 percent to 46 percent according to the latest Washington Post / ABC Poll. But that near 50-50 split is common in many polls and shows that as the idea becomes more mainstream there's a healthy opposition to it.

We saw this recently in the comments by Miss California Carrie Prejean who said she believes marriage should be between a man and a woman and who parlayed her new fame into a gig working as a spokesperson for the National Organization for Marriage, while angering famous blogger Perez Hilton, who fired off a nasty retort using the "B-word."

That's the shape of things to come, but let's see where we really are because the media can make it seem as if Gay Marriage is already the norm, but it's not. As of November 2008, 29 states passed constitutional amendments barring the recognition of same sex marriage, so the majority of states still don't back it, even as Maine and New Hampshire seem set to approve it.

See, rather than becoming less of a wedge issue, it's more so.

As more people speak in favor of it, we have more who speak against it, and that's the political dynamic that could hurt us democrats.

We could have an election contest pitting two Black candidates, one Democrat and pro Gay Marriage, the other Republican and not, but basically having the same positions as his more liberal challenger. The way society is moving the GOP candidate could win. Recognition of this is already starting to split the Democratic Party, but the overriding economic problems are the glue that binds us for now. But for how long?

The real issue is the civil right of a person to marry who they want, not sexual orientation.

Look, about half the women I've dated said they were lesbian and still slept with me. Some of them are now married to men and have kids!

On top of that, we have websites like Ashley Madison.com that encourage married couples to cheat on each other!

It all spells one big anarchnistic, me-ism mess. My prediction is that over the next 25 years this hyper-fluidity in relationships will give way to a desire for something predictable.

But the road to that place will be rocky, with political groups, lawsuits charging sexual abandonment, and a newly revived GOP.

Buckle up!

Jerry Brown urges court to scrap Prop. 8 - Inside Bay Area

Jerry Brown orders scrapping Prop. 8 - Inside Bay Area: “SAN FRANCISCO—California Attorney General Jerry Brown changed course on the state's new same-sex marriage ban Friday and urged the state Supreme Court to void Proposition 8.
In a dramatic reversal, Brown filed a legal brief saying the measure that amended the California Constitution to limit marriage to a man and a woman is itself unconstitutional because it deprives a minority group of a fundamental right. Earlier, Brown had said he would defend the ballot measure against legal challenges from gay marriage supporters.
But Brown said he reached a different conclusion "upon further reflection and a deeper probing into all the aspects of our Constitution."
"It became evident that the Article 1 provision guaranteeing basic liberty, which includes the right to marry, took precedence over the initiative," he said in an interview Friday night. "Based on my duty to defend the law and the entire Constitution, I concluded the court should protect the right to marry even in the face of the 52 percent vote."”

--This is Jerry Brown's finest hour. Period.

Prince Was Pro-Prop 8 - Rocker Turning Christian Conservative

In what has to be the shocker news item of the day, Gawker reports the famous Rocker Prince has said he's against homosexuality. He's reported to have said this:


When asked about his perspective on social issues—gay marriage, abortion—Prince tapped his Bible and said, “God came to earth and saw people sticking it wherever and doing it with whatever, and he just cleared it all out. He was, like, ‘Enough.’


Funny, because a number of people thought Prince was Gay; not me. But I'm just saying. Still Prince seems to fall in line with the majority of voting African Americans in California who supported Prop 8. I write that because Prince did not say how he voted on Prop 8.

The Prop 8 Issue - Being Black and Gay Are Not The Same

This video will be misunderstood by some just for its title. I ask you to listen to what I say. I'm am against California Proposition 8. I've made videos to show the World how stupid and hateful the people who back the initiative can be. But what does bother me is the discovery that of all groups, African Americans voted more for it than against it. Why? I think one reason is that the message those who were against Prop 8 put out was off-putting to many who are Black. While I agree that gay marriage is a civil rights issue, one can't then make the cognitive leap and say that Blacks and Gays share the same path and past. The reason is simple: if I walk down the street you already have made up your mind how you're going to adress me because of my skin color. That's not true if the person's Gay -- you can't tell by looking. The bottom line is civil rights for all -- but the message that's sent by "No on 8" seems to say that if a person's straight White and male, they're normal. No one Black wants to hear that.

No On 8 v. Yes On 8 Oakland Culture War Update Video

This is an update of my first video on a clash between supporters of state Prop 8 and those opposing it. I went back to the same MacArthur and Lakeshore corner featured in the first video.  

Del Martin (87) and Phyllis Lyon (84) Lesbian Activists To Wed

According to SFist, Del Martin (87) and Phyllis Lyon (84), longtime Lesbian activists, will be the first to marry under California's new unbanning of Gay marriage.

The pair will redo their vows on June 16th, with San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom officiating their ceremony. We wish them well.

Getting Politics Out of the Bedroom

If you check out Zennie's post below, you'll see that at a campaign stop in Nashville, TN, on Monday, John McCain was asked about "gay marriage . . . in the context of the preservation of marriage." The question came from a citizen at a town hall meeting who gently raised the issue of McCain's own infidelity, wondering how infidelity as a whole is compatible with the notion that marriage is so sacred as to be off limits to the gay community.

It's a good point. Conservative estimates put the percentage of married Americans who stray around 22%. That's at least 1 in 5. Imagine your neighborhood. Now imagine that 1 in 5 of those homes contain a spouse who is having an extramarital affair. That should put things in perspective.

With so many Americans turning outside their marriages for affairs, is the town hall questioner correct that marriage is not quite the sanctified union in America that it used to be? Further, with religious affiliation on the decline in the United States, how representative of the culture at large is the idea of a sanctified union?

The issue of gay marriage is, at best, complicated. The question is who is best to legislate it? Should we allow politicians with their own histories of violating the sacred unions they vow to uphold, like John McCain, into our bedrooms to legislate who we may marry and enter into unions with? Or should we leave those decisions to the more impartial court systems? Or, better yet, put them to vote? Surely a country where 1 in 5 married people cheat, a country slowly turning away from the notion of sanctified marriages in the religious context, would be able to see past the sanctification issues and allow all people, regardless of sex, to declare their love for each other with all rights and priveleges of traditional legal marriage.

As Zennie correctly points out, this will not be the last time that John McCain is confronted with the infidelity and, by extension, character issue on the campaign trail. I think that this questioner showed that this will also not be the last time he is confronted on the gay marriage issue. When politicians can prove that they can take care of the issues in their own bedrooms, I might entertain the notion of letting them think about what goes on in mine. Until that time (never), they need to get back to legislating about important things, like this war, this struggling economy, the prescriptions too expensive for my mother in law, and the standardized testing my daughter is still taking on the next to last day of school.