Miscellanea Agnostica

The current Miss California USA, Carrie Prejean, became a Religious Right heroine when she professed allegiance to religious opposition to gay marriage during the Miss USA pageant, a few weeks ago. She has since then acquired a reputation as being persecuted for her religious beliefs … something the Religious Right — and many other sorts of Christians too — are particularly vulnerable to, because of Christianity’s origins and nature. But it turns out Ms Prejean is not the devoutly religious angel her followers consider her, as CNN reports:

Miss California USA Carrie Prejean “breached her contract” by keeping semi-nude photos a secret and could be stripped of her beauty queen title, according to a state pageant spokesman.

The national pageants impose morals clauses on contestants and disclosures of anything even marginally questionable are required … apparently, she did not do that in this case:

The spokesman for Miss California USA provided CNN with a copy of the pageant contract Prejean signed last year agreeing that the discovery of semi-nude photos could mean disqualification.

“You’ll see in the agreement that she signed that she clearly violated the terms of her reign as Miss California USA, but we don’t expect a decision to be made today,” Neal said.

Of course, her followers among the Christian world are none too happy about this obvious breach of morality. However, they aren’t holding her responsible for her immoral conduct and her violation of a contract with the pageant. Instead, she — and they — are accusing their opponents of having fabricated the whole thing:

Prejean said the photos — taken when she was 17 and aspiring to be a Victoria’s Secret model — were being used in a “vicious and mean-spirited” effort to silence her for “defending traditional marriage.”

Of course, it’s not as though the photos in question were a hoax, photoshopped to make her look bad. No, they’re the real thing. That they represent a breach of the moral behavior one would expect of a fine young Christian woman who believes in all things traditional, is simply not relevant to her:

“I am not perfect, and I will never claim to be,” she said. “But these attacks on me and others who speak in defense of traditional marriage are intolerant and offensive. While we may not agree on every issue, we should show respect for others’ opinions and not try to silence them through vicious and mean-spirited attacks.”

In other words, she feels entitled to fall grossly short of the standards of behavior that other pageant contestants — Christian and non-Christian alike — agreed to abide by, and have no one notice it.

Give me a break! This is exactly the sort of hypocrisy that so many Christians love to engage in, and then whine and fume and carry on sanctimoniously when someone catches them at it and says so.

Note to Ms Prejean and all other Christians who are not clear on this: Jesus Christ himself explicitly and unambiguously forbid you ever to be hypocritical. A few relevant verses are: Mt 6:2, 5, 16; 7:5; 23:13-15; and Lk 6:42. There are, of course, plenty more.

I also love how it’s “intolerant” (and therefore — she implies — wrong) of people to point out her own moral failings, yet somehow it’s not “intolerant” — and therefore not wrong, but righteous instead! — of her to condemn gay couples. Hmm. I have no idea what sort of universe that makes rational sense in, but it’s not this one.