Beauty Pageants, the Culture Wars, Alinsky, and the Irony of it All

By now, we all know the story. Celebrity gay blogger Perez Hilton asked Miss California, Carrie Prejean, what her thoughts were on gay marriage. Prejean said that she believed that marriage should be between one man and one woman. The after math has set off a firestorm that merges pop culture and culture wars in a perfect fusion of absurdity and political correctness and debate.

I, personally, would not be upset if Prejean lost as a result of this. (of course we don't know that she did since we don't have any deep analysis of the scores) Beauty, as they say, is in the eye of the beholder. Beauty pageants are in the eye of the judges, and so if a judge finds a contestant "ugly" because they support traditional marriage so be it. My only problem with her answer was that she indicated that she meant to offend no one. Why would a deeply held belief ever be offensive to anyone? She need not apologize to anyone for her heartfelt beliefs.

What is truly despicable is the reaction of both Hilton and her supposed support staff, Keith Lewis and Shannon Moakler (who run Miss California), who said that they were shocked that any representative of California would take such a position. (they were both virulent opponents of Prop 8 in California) Once again, the purported supporter of so called tolerance show that often those that support "tolerance" are only tolerant of opinions they agree with. Since her answer, this beauty pageant contestant has now been demonized much like a criminal.

This is yet another example of Alinsky rule #13.

identify, isolate, freeze and escalate.

Almost immediately, Hilton went onto his blog and began to demonize Prejean. By doing so, he not only identified her as a threat but tried to isolate her by demonizing her. This demonization was further moved by both Lewis and Moakler who both indicated that beauty pageant contestants shouldn't hold such a "bigoted belief". In fact, O'Reilly had another gay activist on last night who also said that in his opinion believing that marriage should stay traditional would, in his opinion, disqualify anyone from being a beauty pageant winner. All of this is meant to escalate the attacks on the target. This is all meant to stop or freeze the opponent.

The irony here is this. Alinsky created his rules for those of little power to take on more powerful forces. In this case, powerful forces are attempting to use it against a "mere beauty pageant contestant". The real irony is how miserably all of this has failed. Prejean has become a media star and with ever insult and demonization she winds up in yet another media venue to showcase her opinion. More than that, these bullying tactics make their side look vicious and mean spirited. Meanwhile, she merely looks like a young lady expressing her honest opinion. It is of great interest and irony that by doing everything they can to demonize Prejean, all these folks have done is allowed her to continue to express the same opinion over and over.