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Erm... excuse me? Prejean is a beauty contestant, right? Not an elected official. It seems to me that the point of asking contestants their opinions is a weak effort to determine "inner beauty" to match up with outer. Of course she should be open about her personal views when answering.

As to the other points you make, I can't really know for sure how I'd view this if the situation were reversed. My take on it is that beauty queens aren't exactly "common folk," and their opinions generally aren't worth getting flustered over -- simply because as beauty contestants, they have little real influence on world affairs.

Get her into a Senate seat, and give her some power to set legislative priorities, and yeah, I'll sit up and notice. Until then, she's just a fashion model so far as I'm concerned, and what happens to her one way or another is not really a concern. Like I said in an earlier thread, her livelihood isn't threatened by this at all.

What nemo said. If the Miss California USA organization doesn't want their contestants giving political answers to political questions, they should censor morons like Perez Hilton rather than censuring honest contestants like Carrie Prejean. Regardless of what one thinks of her answer, she did nothing wrong. In contrast, Hilton's question to Prejean was the wrong question for a beauty pageant, and it was obviously intended as a provocation.

(Of course Hilton will be asked back as a judge, because look at all the media attention his question has garnered for the pageant. It's a Trump venture, after all.)

This controversy is all the sillier given the straight-faced insistence of pageant officials these days that their pageants are actually scholarship competitions. Um, well, if that's the case, then let the political opinions fly!

I guess that wasn't Nancy's question, was it? So, would it have played out differently if Carrie Prejean had given a liberal answer instead of a conservative one? Maybe. It's hard to say what passes as normal in California. But regardless of the ideology of her answer, it'd be unreasonable to fault her for it.

Got to agree with the two comments above; if she was asked the question, she had a right to answer it honestly, stating her own opinion. And the furor over the photos is absurd, they are clearly lingerie and swimsuit adds, no more salacious than the brassiere adds in the JCPenney Sunday adds.

Now on the other hand, why *anyone* of *any* persuasion would *care* what her opinion is on pretty much any subject is a total mystery to me.

I don't think that there can be much doubt that the response would have been much different. Given her respectful response, in which she said she was not meaning to offend anyone, I think if she had answered the question in the affirmative, there may have been some grumbling by some on the right, but there certainly would not have been the coverage and controversy or the smear campaign on television that we see. Rather, the talking heads would be defending her and ridiculing the "bumpkins" who expressed any disagreement with her, probably with the same vigor that they are impuning her now.

I feel comfortable in saying that there would not have been masogonistic comments we have heard from Hilton, or statements that they are going to tear the tiara off her. Generally speaking the right is far more tolerant of speach than the left. One of the big reasons that we are losing the culture war is because we aren't willing to do just anything to win.

Personally, I question the judgment of any organization that would hitch their wagon to something as sexist and demeaning as a beauty pageant. It is beyond debate that the contestants are not very bright, that many have been 'cosmetically enhanced,' and that strutting around in a bikini and heels is much closer to porn than scholarship.
I believe many people are delighted to follow such antics simply because it deflates the obvious hypocricy of staging and supporting such 'contests' in the first place.
If you want Prejean as a spokeswoman for Christianity, you really don't have a clue about Christianity.

euripedes:

The question is how "conservative Christians" might have treated Ms. Prejean if she had answered Mr. Hilton's question differently. We were not asked to pass on her qualifications to be a spokesperson for any position, or whether she has the prerequisite qualifications to pass as a Christian under yours or anyone else's standards for judging such things. I don't think it is fair to say that Christianity has "hitched itself" to Ms. Prejean, either, any more that it has hitched itself to you or me.

As to these last two points, however, I would point out that throughout the Bible God uses all kinds of folks without the pedigree you seem to require: A prostitute - Rahab; a studderer - Abraham; A tax collector - Matthew; and Saul the persecutor of Christians, who became the great apostle Paul, to advance His Kingdom. Given the fact that God uses and has used through history all kinds of people, is it completely beyond the pale of reason that you might have it wrong, and, although Ms. Prejean may have frailties and shortcomings, she nonetheless is actually a child of God and competent to say those things that she has come to by her faith in God?

Oops! My fault. Moses, not Abraham.