Pageantry and Politics Collide

This weekend after watching my Pistons succumb to their inevitable defeat at the hands of the Cleveland Cavaliers in the NBA Playoffs, and then watching my Red Wings win their second playoff game in the NHL Playoffs, I decided to take some well deserved time off from sports and watch the Miss USA Pageant. It was a great display of talent and beauty, and I enjoyed every minute of it until politics unfortunately had to be thrown in and ruin it. Perez Hilton, known for his gossip blog, was one of the guest judges during the pageant, and asked Miss California, who was in a tight race with Miss North Carolina, who ended up losing, a question on her views about gay marriage. As I have stated before on this blog, I am 100% in favor of gay marriage, gay and lesbian couples having the same rights as heterosexual couples to be married and be recognized as such. However, in my opinion, it belittles the movement to legalize gay marriage when you blindside someone like that, who worked very hard to get to that moment and when she actually gave an honest answer to penalize her. Just because I do not agree with her views does not make me any better than her. I can try and change her views, or convince her in other ways to be more accepting, but the way Hilton acted was really obnoxious and does not help anyone. In fact I think it might have done a little bit of damage because it might show people who are in favor of gay marriage as intolerant of other people's views or overreaching in what they want. It will at least, sadly, give Bill O'Reilly or Sean Hannity something to play for the next week until they find something else to get angry about.