Carrie Prejean Got the Bigot Vote

Sorted under GLBTQ on April 21, 2009

Perez Hilton was a judge at the Miss USA pageant. When he asked Miss California, Carrie Prejean, if she thought every state should follow suit with the most recent Vermont victory for same sex marriage, she had this to say:

“Well I think it’s great that Americans are able to choose one or the other. We live in a land that you can choose same sex marriage or opposite marriage and you know what, in my country and in my family, I think that I believe a marriage should be between a man and a woman. No offense to anybody out there, but that’s how I was raised and that’s how I think it should be between a man and a woman. Thank you.”

(The video above does not contain the first half of her answer, you can see her answer in its entirety here.)

Sadly, many people share Ms. Prejean’s thoughts. Many people believe that marriage is a right to some people, but not to others. Many people hold onto what they were taught by their parents so tight, refusing to open their minds and actually think for themselves and develop their own set of principles. It is because of this obvious set back in humanity that repeatedly brings the LGBT community, friends, and allies for equality to say the same thing. For the record, a person does not choose to be gay. We do not live in a land where we can choose same sex marriage because we do not choose to be gay or straight, we simply are.

Carrie Prejean was raised to be a bigot and it is obvious that there are many people who are still holding onto the old-fashioned, privileged, and bigoted principles that were forced into their brains as they were growing up. This does not mean that I am excusing Ms. Prejean’s words or how she conducted herself and answered the question during the pageant. Every person has the ability to wake up from their privileged stupor and accept every human for who they are and Prejean as well as every person who cheered for her after she gave her disappointing answer and who continue to cheer her on for her close-mindedness after the fact simply chose to believe that they are merely better than those who wish to have their love recognized by the state that they live in.

h/t Womanist Musings



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  • Jen
    I want the right to marry the woman that I am completely in love with, buy a home, and have the same rights as a straight couple. People need to get with the times. It is people like Carrie that are keeping that right from us.
  • Let's just respect her opinion. I, myself, am for same sex marriage, and sadly, no matter how much I want others to share my opinion, there are just some people like Ms. Prejean who won't let go. Like she said, marriage between opposite sex was taught to her ever since she was young. Most of us find it hard to let go of something we've believe in for many years, right?
    Once a person's mind is made-up, we really would find it hard to make him change his mind, no matter how many times we try to. It's unfortunate that it has to be that way. But we just have to continue fighting for what we believe in and respect others' opinion. :)
  • Steve
    The only problem with letting her have her own opinion is that people like her are doing everything they can to have laws made to take away any choice but the one they choose. When you go through the trouble of having laws made to discriminate against someone you are no longer just voicing your opinions
  • Steve
    Religion has no place in this Country's laws. There is a reason our founding fathers insisted on freedom of religion. I may not be a gay man myself, but that does not mean I think it is right to discriminate
  • tinkapuss
    What annoys me (and I am FOR gay rights) is that this woman speaks her opinion in a country known for its freedom of speech rights and is booed and lambasted for her honest answer. Whilst I disagree with her opinion, at least she didn't fib to get the crown! She very possibly has stronger moral fibre than some of her pagaent co-competitors. And who is to presume that, having been 'raised' to believe something and then having continued to believe that in adult years, somehow means a person is unquestioning a close-minded? I don't agree with her but I would not want her presuming that I, being liberal and atheist, have a closed mind or am immoral. (Can't believe I am supporting a beauty pagaent bimbo in her right to express her - perhaps bigotted - views....but I am!) LOL
  • A) referring to a woman as a "bimbo" regardless of if she's in a beauty pageant is pretty sexist (so please reconsider that language)
    B) the idea of free speach is not that all speach is equally good, it is that the GOVERNMENT won't get in the way of certain speech just because it is unpopular. Therefore, it's perfectly alright for us to boo and lambast her. I agree it's for the best that she answered that way, now we all know that she's a bigot. Additionally, regardless of whether she didn't win based on this answer or not, it doesn't change the fact that she didn't ANSWER the question. It was a question about the rights of people to marry (and whether it should be legally recognized) and she didn't answer it. Instead she talked about how she thought it was wrong and how it was just how she was raised.
  • tinkapuss
    DeviantE, I agree with you that her answer was poor in as much as she didn't answer the question and responded too personally for it to have had much impact (in theory). Of course it did have a major impact in actuality because everybody is talking about it. I think I just like the fact that she answered with what was true for her and knew it would probably destroy her chance of the 'crown'.

    It's interesting that you note my use of the word 'bimbo' and ask me to reconsider (which I did and decided I would probably still use it in the same context) and yet you describe her as a 'bigot'. Personally, I think my claim to her being a 'bimbo' is fairer as she is parading on a stage in a pair of bikinis - which I find about as degrading for women generally as a wet-t-shirt comp. at the local pub. But to describe her as bigot seems a little harder to make a claim for - we only have her one answer to that one unprepared for question.
  • The difference between bigot and bimbo:
    Bimbo specifically uses the fact that the person is a woman to degrade her. As such, it is not simply an insult of the person herself, but of the entire CLASS she belongs to (namely, women). If one wants to argue that men are also targeted with "bimbo" ze is going to need to also convince me that the insult in *that* usage isn't the implicit feminization of the target. Frankly, it's up there with "bitch" for me in terms of the acceptibility (which is to say, that the people who can use it, *even ironically*, and not get my goat up, are few and far between).
    Bigot does not specifically target any group: you can be white or a Person of Color, trans or cisgendered, an atheist or a person of faith, all are equally available to be tarred with that brush. As such, me calling her a bigot is not using her status as a person in an oppressed class as the primary (or only way) in which the insult works.

    Additionally, if someone tells the whole world that they don't support me being equal in front of the law, how exactly do you think I should feel about them? Should I sing and dance tra la la through the fields? Fuck no. It is my right to call bigots out when I see them. Don't think queers should have equal rights? You are a bigot. Don't think that Women of Color/People of Color should have equal rights, equally a bigot. Think that able-ism is a-ok? Bigot.

    PS. I'm not trying to claim myself as a member of all the oppressed groups I talked about here, the point is that bigotry (to my mind) is universal in-so-far as it is about the oppression of certain groups by a system that values a very small subset of humanity above all others.
  • tinkapuss
    Ok DeviantE - point taken...perhaps we need a new word or euphemism for idiots who compete in pageants?! (Hey, am I pageant-prejudice??)
  • Why not "idiots"?
    The only one who can answer whether you are pageant prejudiced is yourself. I will say for myself that I find them horribly creepy and problematic, but that generally I try accord blame for the creepiness not so much to the participants as to the society that views women as only good if their bodies are hot.

    Have you ever seen "Little Miss Sunshine"? I think that's a pretty good example of something that shows how sexualizing beauty pageants are, without blaming the participants.

    Edited to Add: Look into the (short, I promise) video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bieDx14M-m8 for an even better look at how to respond to Carrie Prejean.
  • In the country where there are death penalties there can not be such freedom. paris the good fellow .чем more than such speeches the more people think that it really so
    p.s.i am russian
  • kenneth sena
    this is true. many people believe in the way they are raised. unfortunately, these people do not tend to understand the way they see people who belong in the third sex. i have nothing against the third sex people but i am also not approving same sex marriage. even though i disapprove, i still believe that same sex marriage are also right for people who are really in love.
  • Buffy2q
    It's ironic that people think "gay is a choice, so it's OK to discriminate against gay people". Yet they fervently cling to their belief that freedom of religion and protections for religious beliefs/practices are paramount.

    Religion is very much a choice.

    Where is the disconnect?
  • Even if sexual orientation was a choice, it still wouldn't make discriminating a just thing to do.
    For instance, even though I disagree that religion is a sound basis for understanding the world, by no stretch of the imagination could I act as though it's "moral" to say that people of faith shouldn't be allowed to marry.
    While I think the narrative of "it's not our/their fault, they/we are born this way" has merit, and helps some people understand, at the same time sometimes I worry that it obscures the larger truth.

    That there is NOTHING wrong with queer relationships. Just as there is nothing wrong with people who are religious being in relationships, and just as there is nothing wrong with PoC being in relationships (two ends of the "choice" spectrum), there is nothing wrong with queer relationships. To say otherwise is incorrect.
  • Stealthman
    Oh--whatever.
  • Oh yay! Someone who *so* doesn't care about queers rights that he posts a response to a response to a blogpost about them. Yeah. Not buying it.
  • Very well said.
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