Colleen Carroll Campbell
From the St. Louis Post-Dispatch
From the St. Louis Post-Dispatch
"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."
With that mild answer to a beauty-pageant query earlier this month, Miss California Carrie Prejean was catapulted to the center of an international controversy resulting in vicious attacks on her character, intelligence and religious beliefs.
The assault began almost immediately after the 21-year-old college junior answered a question about her views on same-sex marriage from Perez Hilton, a gay gossip blogger and Miss USA contest judge who earned his fame by drawing obscene doodles on celebrity photos and "outing" gay stars on his website. Incensed by Prejean's failure to endorse his views on gay marriage, Hilton took to the airwaves and Internet to call Prejean a string of unprintable names.
The incident would be just another laughable case of a blogger behaving badly were it not for the fact that Hilton's histrionic response was echoed by a chorus of more respectable voices. They ranged from the TV journalists who fretted on air about Prejean's insensitivity and pageant officials who publicly sided with Hilton to the parade of Hollywood celebrities who denounced Prejean and high-ranking gay British politician Alan Duncan, who called her a "silly [expletive]" and said that if she turns up murdered, "you will know it was me."
For all the fuss, Prejean hardly is alone in her conventional view of marriage. Polls show that most Americans share that view and voters in 29 states, including California, have approved state constitutional amendments banning gay marriage. Yet Prejean did something most Americans who oppose gay marriage no longer dare to do: She voiced her beliefs in the public square. And when pressured to recant, she refused. [ ... ]
The assault began almost immediately after the 21-year-old college junior answered a question about her views on same-sex marriage from Perez Hilton, a gay gossip blogger and Miss USA contest judge who earned his fame by drawing obscene doodles on celebrity photos and "outing" gay stars on his website. Incensed by Prejean's failure to endorse his views on gay marriage, Hilton took to the airwaves and Internet to call Prejean a string of unprintable names.
The incident would be just another laughable case of a blogger behaving badly were it not for the fact that Hilton's histrionic response was echoed by a chorus of more respectable voices. They ranged from the TV journalists who fretted on air about Prejean's insensitivity and pageant officials who publicly sided with Hilton to the parade of Hollywood celebrities who denounced Prejean and high-ranking gay British politician Alan Duncan, who called her a "silly [expletive]" and said that if she turns up murdered, "you will know it was me."
For all the fuss, Prejean hardly is alone in her conventional view of marriage. Polls show that most Americans share that view and voters in 29 states, including California, have approved state constitutional amendments banning gay marriage. Yet Prejean did something most Americans who oppose gay marriage no longer dare to do: She voiced her beliefs in the public square. And when pressured to recant, she refused. [ ... ]
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