Perhaps the question should have been prefaced with: ‘I would like your honest, personal opinion, just make sure it agrees with mine’.
Carrie Prejean, Miss California, was asked for her views on gay marriage by one of the judges at the Miss USA pageant, celebrity blogger Perez Hilton.
Miss Prejean responded:
We live in a land where you can choose same-sex marriage or opposite marriage. I believe that a marriage should be between a man and a woman. No offence to anybody out there, but that’s how I was raised.
Bam. No Miss USA title for Miss Prejean as it was not the answer Hilton wanted to hear. Hilton said her answer:
alienated millions of gay and lesbian Americans, their families and their supporters. She lost it because of that question.
So, it seems that freedom of speech, freedom of expression or thought, personal opinion is only permitted if the answer is the one that the questioner wants to hear.
Miss Prejean wasn’t offensive, derogatory or even rude, she was simply asked for her belief and she gave her honest answer. Is no-one entitled to a personal opinion or belief anymore? She could have lied, to appease Perez Hilton, but she didn’t. Good for her.
After losing the crown, for which she was the favourite, she said:
I wouldn’t have had it any other way. I said what I feel. I stated an opinion that was true to myself and that’s all I can do.
Maybe next time they should pre-record the answers and let the contestants lipsync the (politically) correct response.