This week, the national debate over gay marriage once again throttled up when, during the Miss America contest, gossip blogger and contest judge Perez Hilton asked Miss California for her thoughts on gay marriage.  The question itself seemingly turned no heads, however Carrie Prejean's answer did. 

            Hilton, the self-proclaimed "Queen of All Media", opened the lid of this pageant Pandora's Box by purposefully challenging a contestant who happens to attend a Christian college.  Miss Prejean also happens to represent the state that recently passed the oft-discussed Proposition 8 which reiterated the public's desire to see marriage remain recognized as between a man and a woman.  Hilton is no shrinking violet and is both a well-known attention hound and admitted homosexual.  That is part of his shtick and a large reason for his devoted following.  These elements helped to create a kind of ideological perfect storm.  The move was as calculated as its outcomes were predictable.

            When Hilton asked her beliefs with regard to gay marriage, Miss Prejean's answer was sincere and to-the-point, "We live in a land where you can choose same-sex marriage or opposite. And you know what, I think in my country, in my family, I think that I believe that a marriage should be between a man and a woman. No offense to anybody out there, but that's how I was raised."

            In theory, that should have been the end of it.  Question. Response.  Next.  But for so many torch-bearers of the gay agenda, this constituted nothing less than a public flogging that should be responded to in kind, and soon armies of homosexual activists and apologists were mounted and on the charge. 

            In the hours and days following the pageant, Miss Prejean was subjected to a litany of insults by Hilton himself, media personalities, and vitriolic members of the gay community on message boards and sound bites throughout the country.  Through the media, Hilton spewed a slew of expletive-laden insults at the 21 year old college student.  In addition to his vulgar tirades, he also defaced her pictures on his web site, proudly announced he had given her a score of  "0"(essentially costing her the title), and said had she won that he'd have run on stage and snatched her crown away.  One of the co-organizers of the pageant, Keith Lewis, said he personally was "saddened and hurt" by her comments while another colleague, Shannon Moakler, supported his comments. CNN talking head Jane Velez-Mitchell attacked her as part of a panel discussion on No Bias, No Bull.  And increasingly irrelevant train wreck-in-waiting Miley Cyrus, renowned thinker that she is, also chimed in with her critique of Miss Prejean's answer, "That's lame."

            Even if one were to disagree with Miss Prejean's opinion, you could not legitimately make the argument that her answer was hateful, mean-spirited, or even all that inflammatory. She answered both honestly and according to the dictates of her beliefs.  The same cannot be said, though, of the disproportionately vitriolic attacks on both the character and beliefs of Miss Prejean. One need only scan the comments section of any on-line article featuring the showdown to get a sample of the violent, unhinged, and often anti-Christian sentiment being poured out at the expense of Miss Prejean's name and faith.

            It is not as if she requested that question in order to manufacture some nationwide platform, but one could reasonably draw the conclusion that Hilton, no doubt upset by the success of Proposition 8 and a vested interest in the cause, utilized his position as a judge to further push his own agenda.  He is the one who injected the issue into the evening.  Miss Prejean, a Christian woman of faith,  simply answered accordingly.

            Truth be told, the question was an entirely plausible one.  It is fair to ask about a social issue that was hotly contested and debated.  What is not fair, though, is to politicize and event and then act outraged when someone expresses a dissenting opinion.   Hilton went so far as to say that Prejean's answer ought to have been more "politically correct".  Let's get this straight, no longer are gay advocates content to force their agenda on the public at large in a cultural rape, but they now want us to voluntarily agree and say "Thank you for the service"?  Well, no thanks.

            The public has spoken repeatedly in large numbers that they believe that marriage is between a man and a woman.  Whenever this comes up for a vote it is regularly beaten.  Only Vermont can claim that the measure passed via legislation.  All other instances -- Massachussettes, Connecticut, and most recently Iowa -- saw the general will of the voters cast aside as judges legislated from their benches and bullied the general populace into submitting to the whims and wills of the ever-advancing homosexual agenda and its foot soldiers.  More states are certain to follow suit.  When elections are viewed as mere formalities and the benches acknowledged as the true seats of power, the voters are increasingly losing their political voice.

            It seems that Perez Hilton and his ilk now want them to lose their actual voice as well.  The egg of individual expression is now being assaulted by acolytes of the gay movement.  As evidenced by the outcry against Miss Prejean, there are cracks already beginning to show in that shell. And all the queen's horses and all the queen's men most decidedly do not want to see that put back together again.