LGBT POV

One would think that the Miss California USA Pageant might have had just about enough talk about gay marriage after the brouhaha raised by former Miss California, Carrie Prejean.  But that’s not the way pageant director Keith Lewis saw it – before Prejean sued him and the pageant and before her sex tapes surfaced and the subsequent settlement.

The new Miss California USA pageant airs today – check their website or your local listings for broadcast on the CW network or you can watch the live webcast of Miss California USA on Ustream. The broadcast will feature a 30 second ad on same sex marriage produced by Equality California. Carrie Prejean was invited to also tape an ad for the broadcast – but she declined.

Lewis told LGBT POV that – contrary to Prejean’s persistent complaint that the pageant and Lewis were trying to “silence her” because of her antigay religious beliefs – he wanted to be “a balanced voice of reason” and therefore offered Prejean an opportunity to say whatever she wanted to say in the 30 second taped spot.

Lewis told LGBT POV:

“We offered Carrie an opportunity to speak and we knew what her message would be.”

Lewis said there have been many conservative contestants – including the reigning Miss California, who also does not believe in marriage equality for same sex couples. But he also felt it was important – as an organization that is known and responsible for mentoring young women, to cut Carrie “a certain amount of slack” since she is “evolving as a young woman” and as a reminder that she had been fired for her behavior (violating her contract), not her beliefs.

Lewis said:

“I don’t think you silence women when you’re trying to mentor them and when they’re trying to have a voice.  I don’t care what Carrie says.  I care how she behaves under my banner.”

Ironically, he said, the offer was extended before Prejean’s lawsuit while she was publicly saying she was being silenced.

Lewis he also felt an obligation as a business owner to offer Equality California a similar opportunity.

“As an organization, we have always shad room at the table for all sides of any political issue and we’ve had many, many Miss USA and Miss California contestants who have conservative beliefs and there has never been a problem.”

Unlike Prejean, EQCA accepted the offer and their thirty second ad featuring Pasadena couple Frances and Cynthia with their daughter Mary Kate will air during the broadcast.

Geoff Kors, executive director for Equality California, said:

“We truly appreciate MISS CALIFORNIA USA offering us the opportunity to share the story of this loving California family and how being denied the freedom to marry has hurt them. By sharing their story, we hope to shed light on the damage and pain that same-sex couples and their children experience when they are prevented from entering into a civil marriage.”

EQCA also invited former Prejean to meet with people from the LGBT community “to start a dialogue about who LGBT people are and the harm that is caused by denying LGBT community members equality. Prejean, however, did not respond.”

Meanwhile – Prejean’s future is unclear – including her serving as a model-spokesperson for the National Organization for Marriage. In a Nov. 17 column by NOM leader Maggie Gallagher called, AFTER CARRIE

Gallagher wrote:

“[Carrie] has made many mistakes in her young life, including some that Catholics like me would call sins. But when I was 22 years old, Carrie’s age, I had a child out of wedlock.

I hope young women watching learn something from Carrie’s ordeal; ideally something like: Don’t have sex with men who aren’t willing to marry you. But if that is too elevated an ideal, try this one: Girls, don’t send any pic to your boyfriend you don’t want your mom or Matt Lauer to see.

An embarrassed Carrie wasn’t fully truthful about her private and personal life, which ended up making things more difficult for her. (Could any of those folks who defended Bill Clinton’s right to commit perjury about sex please step up and say a kind word or two for Carrie?)

But fundamentally, Carrie is right: None of this spectacle would be happening to her if she had submitted instead of speaking truth to Hollywood power…..

A few people have asked me if Carrie is now going to “stop” working for me. The truth is she doesn’t work for NOM (National Organization for Marriage). We cut a TV ad without asking her approval using publicly available footage, and then we asked her to appear at a press conference to promote it. Out of the goodness of her heart she agreed, for which I remain grateful. I was asked to introduce her at several events, and I would do so again.

I really wanted Carrie to work for me because I believed she may have had a calling to help fight for the other Americans who believe as she does that marriage is the union of husband and wife.

But Carrie did not want to be a crusader on the gay marriage issue, or the leader of a Christian youth movement. She just wanted to be a model, or an entertainer, or a sportscaster, or a news reader — the kind of thing you’d imagine a 22-year-old beauty queen might dream about. I don’t know why so many people are exulting over the idea they may have killed her young dreams.

I hope the people gleeful about this attack are enjoying their pyrrhic victory. What they have done says far more about them than about Carrie, who turns out to be a not-unusual California 22-year-old.”

Here’s a  schedule for the Miss California USA broadcast.

Fans can watch and interact in the live webcast of Miss California USA on Ustream at http://www.ustream.tv/channel/miss-california-usa

Here’s the EQCA ad: