One of my favorite things to do when I was in elementary school was to watch the Miss USA pageant, every year, with my friend Colleen. While neither of us were interested in being beauty queens -- despite putting on the occasional fashion show for her parents -- and in fact, had very little interest in the nitty-gritty content of the competition, there was just something fun about watching 50 women get up on stage and do their best.
Also, it was fun to critique their fashion and ridiculous answers to questions posed by the panel.
Anyway. I don't remember much about the pageant being controversial when I was younger, the occasional nude photo scandal aside. If you've been following the news around this year's competition, however, you know that the story has changed; Miss California responded to blogger Perez Hilton's question around gay marriage (during the competition) by saying that she believes marriage should be between a man and a woman, and the proverbial shit hit the fan on both sides of the political fence.
The folks who are against gay marriage have been shouting that the contestant has the right to say and think whatever she wants, and the folks who support gay marriage have loudly criticized her commentary as ignorant and ridiculous.
Me? I stand firmly on the latter side of the fence, but have always tried hard to be open-minded enough to accept other people's opinions on the topic and firmly believe in the freedom of speech. I've realized recently, though, that I can't actually accept the concept of being against gay marriage as valid.
So while I completely believe that anyone should be able to say or think anything they want to think (my favorite quote, from Voltaire: "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."), I will admit that I am judging the content of what Miss California said.
See, I don't consider the idea that two men or two women shouldn't be allowed to marry any different than someone saying an African-American shouldn't be allowed to marry a white woman, or that a Catholic shouldn't be able to marry someone of Jewish faith. It's bigotry, plain and simple; gay rights are civil rights, and the gay community is not asking for more rights than anyone else. They are simply reminding us (as in, the more traditionally mainstream/straight community) that separate has never been -- and will never be -- equal. And I, for one, am glad that the judges did not choose a Miss USA who believed otherwise.
