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Three Profiles in Courage
Philippians 4:13 as her inspiration: "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me."
We have made our age into a time of fold-up bullies, heartless tyrants and mindless civil servants. They all claim to be "only following orders" when a child can see through their flimsy excuses.
Cowards never build a nation. They are useless tics that lurk about until they can suck the life's blood from a warm body politic. They exist in every generation, but they arrive to prominence through holes in the social fabric. They thrive in times of racial hatred and bigotry.
When we ignore the basic morals we learned as children, we allow the worst in us to emerge.
Today, we can learn how to stand up for our rights from a beauty contest runner-up and a morning talk show hostess. Both heroines are conservative in the true and highest sense.
GOP New Pin-up
The Gay Marriage Row
Charles Laurence, FirstPost.co.uk
Carrie Prejean, 21, blonde and polished to a golden California shine, is knocking Sarah Palin off her perch as pin-up girl for the family-values Republican Right. She is Miss California, the beauty queen who blew her chances for the crown in the Miss USA contest by blurting out a sincere answer to one of those this-proves-the-girls-have-brains-too questions that are de rigeur these days.
Did she support gay marriage? No, she did not. The trouble is that the question came from Perez Hilton, a contest judge who is a gay man famed for scoops on his Hollywood gossip website, and it was loaded.
"We live in a land where you can choose same-sex marriage or opposite," Prejean began in promising dumb-blonde style, since there are in fact just three states out of 50 where gay marriage is legal. But she went on: "And you know what, I think in my country, in my family, I think that I believe that a marriage should be between a man and a woman. No offence to anyone, but that's how I was raised."
Hilton, squealing with delighted indignation, did indeed take offence. Prejean, who had been the hot tip for the title, was out. Hilton hurried back to his blog to post a video recording of himself declaring: "Miss California lost because she is a dumb bitch."
All this might have been passed off as no more than a masterpiece of camp theatre. What could be camper than a bitch-fest between a flamboyantly gay publicity seeker who calls himself "the queen of gossip" and a straight California Girl, at a beauty contest owned and organized by Donald Trump?
But then God and politics came into it, and this is America. Within the 24-hour news cycle, Prejean was a media star carrying the burden of the national conscience for the Right.
Miss California’s plight was looking a whole lot sexier than Sarah Palin’s
Prejean hit the television talk-show circuit with the savvy of a girl born to spot an opportunity, and all of a sudden Palin was out of the headlines. Here was a blonde beauty queen facing martyrdom for her Christian faith in heterosexual union, and all Palin could do was issue press releases claiming that she was being "victimized" by the 11th complaint of an ethical violation filed against her.
Prejean's plight was looking a whole lot sexier. The vivid imagery was quickly established by Roland Martin, a conservative black columnist who was invited to pontificate on CNN. He said that Prejean "has been savagely attacked by those who oppose what she has to say," and accused Perez of "leading the burn-her-at-the-stake parade".
That was irresistible to Tony Perkins, the President of the Family Research Council who is also a state congressman in Alabama. He tabled actual legislation endorsing her stand, offering "admiration and support" and lauding her "fortitude in the face of continued baseless attacks."
Rupert Murdoch's Fox News scrambled for the "get" of the day, and Prejean next appeared on the Sean Hannity talk show. "There's a lot of people cheering you tonight that you stood on your principles," he gushed, "that you put principles above winning. Not enough people do that. And I admire you a lot for it."
The sense of martyrdom was cemented when Prejean continued on to the Today Show, still the top publicity spot on TV. Matt Lauer, the anchor, asked her if she thought her answer cost her the title. She answered: "I knew at that moment after I had answered the question, I knew I was not going to win because of my answer."
Lauer: "Because you had spoken from your heart."
Prejean: "Because I had spoken from my heart, from my beliefs and for my God."
The beauty queen has been perfectly formed for her mission. She comes from an Italian blood line, and has grown up in San Diego, the US Navy base where the beaches are as good as Los Angeles, but the moral climate more conservative. She supports the football team, lists her hobbies as running on the beach and reading, and her temporal devotions as being towards her family and her dog Biggie, a Chihuahua.
She has taken a year off from studies at a Bible College, and lists Philippians 4:13 as her inspiration: "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me."
The Republican party establishment is wincing at all this. After their rout at the hands of President Obama, they have been doing their best to zip their lips on the 'culture wars' of Dubya Bush, Karl Rove and the Evangelical Right.
Prejean is a reminder that wars linger, whoever is winning them. It is no accident that Prejean is Miss California, that Hilton is a gay Californian, and that Proposition 8, the ballot initiative that overturned California's own legalization of gay marriage, was the last great victory of the Right.
The issue, a 'wedge' aimed at scaring voters away from permissive, gay, black Democrats, won't go away so easily now. And the evidence from the opinion polls is that it can still be a Republican winner, because most Americans really don't like the idea of gay marriage.
Matt Lewis of Townhall.com, a conservative blog, expects to see Prejean on the campaign trail. "How long," he asks, "do you think it will be before Miss California is out campaigning with a prominent Republican running for office?"
Prejean hears the call. She told Lauer that she was proud of herself for doing well as a beauty queen, but winning Miss USA's crown "wasn't what God wanted for my life that night". Have the Republicans stumbled upon their Joan of Arc?
Per Usual, the Media and the Republicans Have Taken Their Eyes off the Ball
In their haste to restore the two-party system to America, they ignore Carrie Prejean's stand-up character and the depth of her intelligence. At her age 21, we can hardly expect her to match the communication skills of our President Barack Obama.
Yet, in the following video we see Obama give the same answer to Carrie's question as she did. Both maintain core Christian values and at the same time recognize the human needs and rights of gays.
Another National Treasure is Mika Brzezinski
Mika is a knock-out beauty with a world class brain. She shows much patience with the dickheads who surround her, attentive and tactful but with a mind soaring above the crowd.
In this video from the MSNBC Morning Joe Show, we see a determined Mika standing up for journalistic integrity furious but completely in control.
My sons will appreciate these videos because they know the courage required to stand up for what is right.
