Miss California, Carrie Prejean, poses for Bliss MagazineMy brain is in a state of pure cognitive dissonance. Carrie Prejean is the face of traditional marriage as is evidenced in a new video ad for National Organization of Marriage. Carrie was the Miss USA contestant from California who was asked by gay blogger Perez Hilton for her views on traditional marriage:
CARRIE: 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 my family I think that I believe that a marriage should be between a man and a woman. No offense to anyone out there but that's how I was raised and that's how I think it should be between a man and a woman.
I'm going to refrain from commenting on 'opposite marriage', or the fact California, the state she represents, does not afford choice in marriage. What I will comment on is the absolute and blatant hypocrisy of the National Organization for Marriage. How in the world does a woman who is marketing personal vanity with a direct appeal to lust become a spokesperson for the sanctity of traditional marriage? But it's worse than this.
On Matt Lauer's program, Carrie claimed that standing up for traditional marriage cost her the crown of Miss USA. She is playing the tyical victim strategy so often used by the fundamentalist right. Unfortunately the judge's scorecards don't reflect her analysis. The winner was comfortably in front and Carrie would have had to have answered Perez's question with the intelligence and wit of a George Will in order to win. Obviously, that didn't happen.
Traditional marriage arguments are generally based on God's so called natural laws. Miss Prejean is no longer 100% natural, having had the California Miss USA pageant pay for her breast enhancements. Apparently the free boobs were all about making her feel comfortable on stage. Apparently contestants have other ways of enhancing themselves that don't call for surgery, but California honored her request for the permanent self assurance boost. So much for trusting in the Will of God, or Jesus's intervention.
Carrie says one of her goals is to be a role model for children. Someone should tell Carrie that those of us who raise daughters in this highly sexualized culture have serious problems with models like herself promoting 'inflated' breast images and 'thinly' disguised eating disorders. They are teaching our daughters that the height of female expression is appreciated best by male lust. This is blatant objectification of both men and women. Women to their body image and men to their testosterone. This has had a devastating effect on the self image of American girls. Oh but I forget, it's not really about our children, it's about traditional marriage.
Hey maybe that's the message the political traditional marriage crowd wants to send. Lust is the real driving force behind heterosexual marriage, not God. Breast augmentation surgery and viagra are the real grease on the wheels of heterosexual marriage, not the Bible.
Maybe that's why they go so overboard vilifying gay marriage as nothing more than legal recognition for 'immoral' sexual acts. Their idea of heterosexual marriage isn't about love between two people either. It's about 'procreative' sexual acts between two lusting sexual objects. Maybe that's why gay marriage is a bigger threat to families than actual heterosexual divorce. Maybe that's why Rudy Giuliani and Newt Gingrich, those stalwart practitioners of serial monogamy, can be considered authentic spokesmen for traditional marriage--because traditional marriage is really the enculturation of the rights of heterosexual male lust and the self esteem challenged women who support it.
If that's all true, then you go girl. You are the poster woman for traditional marriage and Jesus must be in a state of God approved lust driven drooling.
You can have that Jesus. I'll sick with the one who understands committed love is well beyond sexual exploitation and personal vanity.
