Anti-Gay Group NOM Drops Prejean

Earlier this year, former Miss California USA Carried Prejean was the poster-girl of the anti-gay right, including the National Organization of Marriage (NOM), a major Proposition 8 supporter that is seen as the political instrument of the Mormon Church. Now, however, Prejean seems to have been dropped by NOM.

Fred Karger of Californians Against Hate circulated an open letter addressed to NOM's president, Maggie Gallagher.

"Dear Maggie," the letter reads, "It looks like you fired former Miss California, Carrie Prejean, just like Donald Trump did back in June. She is no longer on your web site. I called your Washington, DC PR firm, Mary Beth Hutchins at 703-683-5004 ext. 105, but no one was there to tell me why."

The letter goes on to note that NOM had referred to Prejean as "the future of our movement, and the future of America" when introducing Prejean as a speaker to the Family Research Council-sponsored Voters Value Summit in September, and went on to ask whether Prejean's apparent dismissal was due to Prejean having "lied again" about sex tapes Prejean reportedly made of herself when she was 20.

"This time she said in numerous interviews that she 'made only one sex tape,'" Karger wrote. "Now it appears to be more like 15 or 20. We just heard that from the guy she met on MySpace."

Karger's letter went on to note that the man who said the Prejean sex tapes had been made for him also told TMZ that Prejean had asked him to lie on her behalf and say that she tapes had been made when she was 17. "In an interview with TMZ's Harvey Levin, her ex said that she made the tapes when she was from 19 to 21, so not that long ago like Carrie insists."

Prejean also suggested that because she appeared alone on the videos, they did not fit the definition of "sex tapes."

Karger's letter went on to note that Prejean had been dropped by other groups as well, including the Conservative Capitol Hill Club, which "uninvited" Prejean, who previously had been engaged by the club to give a speech. Moreover, Prejean refused to answer a question from Larry King on Larry King Live. When King asked Prejean why she did not press forward with a suit against the organizers of the Miss USA pageant, whom she had claimed had fired her out of anti-Christian discrimination, Prejean told King that he was acting in an "inappropriate" manner. Removing her microphone, Prejean then refused temporarily to go forward with the appearance, leaving unanswered a caller's question as to what Prejean would have to say to gay beauty pageant fans who wish to participate in the legal protections and obligations of marriage with their life partners.

"Why did you take her off your web site?" Karger's letter to Gallagher continued. "Did you hear from a lot of your high powered Board of Directors on this? What about your likely creator and largest backer, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormon Church)? They gotta be uncomfortable with the whole multiple sex tapes thing." Karger went on to note, "You sure changed your tune, Maggie," pointing out that a June 10 press release from the group had accused "Hollywood" of wanting to muzzle Prejean and end her career, presumably for speaking out against marriage equality last April 19, while a contestant in the Miss USA pageant.

"Hollywood hates Carrie," the release read, going on to quote Brian Brown, the executive director of NOM, as saying, "God knows, and we know, the truth about Carrie: She's a young woman of great beauty who chose truth over the glittering tiara that Hollywood offers. Of course they will try to punish her, but we know she will be fine in the end, because her values are in the right place."

Gallagher was also quoted NOM's June 10 release. "Hollywood will dance its tribal war dance over her body--the hatred generated against her has been extraordinary--but Carrie will be free to define her own mission and message from now on." Gallagher then extended her congratulations to Prejean.

"Guess she's free again, wrote Karger. "Looks like Brian and you treated her worse than Hollywood did, and she's on your side! They gave her a second and third chance. You threw her right under the bus." Added Karger, "You and all your friends are not very tolerant of your paid spokeswoman, the star of your commercials, and the future of your movement. Carrie is not as she appeared, and was very dishonest, but she is only 22 years old. Brian Brown and you should learn from this, and soften your anger towards others, and treat everyone fairly."

"Carrie has never worked for the National Organization for Marriage," Gallagher told anti-gay Christian web site LifeSiteNews. "Out of the goodness of her heart, when we cut an ad 'No Offense' featuring the vicious attacks on Carrie--and by extension every California voter who supported Prop 8--she agreed to appear at our press conference to call attention to our message," said Gallagher, whose comments were posted in a Nov. 17 article. "I remain grateful to her for that."

Gallagher went on to attack the mainstream media for its interest in the Prejean saga, saying, "I cannot believe that reputable media (like the Today show) are featuring said boyfriends as they dump intimate details about Carrie.... I don't understand the newsworthiness of these allegations." Gallagher also went after Prejean's ex, saying, "Admittedly, I am getting kind of old. But in my old-fashioned view, boyfriends who release such information on ex-girlfriends are scummy."

The NOM executive director sought to frame the story in terms of the narrow approval last year of the anti-family Proposition 8, which stripped California gays and lesbians of their then-existing right to marry, dismissing heterosexual "sin" even Prop. 8 supporters have implied that gay "sin" led to same-sex couples deserving to lose the right to wed. "[Seven] million Californians voted for Prop 8. I have no doubt that quite a few of them are people who committed sexual sins of various kinds. Why is this one 22-year-old girl carrying the whole weight of that on her young shoulders?"

Gallagher was quick to return to the right-wing mantra that individuals are being persecuted due to principled stands, grounded in religious conviction, against gay and lesbian family equality. "No-one should face this kind of invasion of their privacy simply because they believe marriage is the union of husband and wife. Period," Gallagher told LifeSiteNews. "I hope the people gleeful about this attack are enjoying their Pyrrhic victory. What they have done says far more about them than about Carrie, who is a not-unusual California 22 year old."

Whether Prejean is representative of the average young Californian may be a matter for debate. One college newspaper columnist noted that Prejean enjoyed a significantly higher profile than many of her peers. "Prejean now joins the ranks of Paris Hilton and Pamela Anderson as not only a star in an explicit home video, but also as an author," wrote Christina Stiehl in a column that appeared Nov. 17 in University of Missouri newspaper The Maneater. "Her book Still Standing is now on bookstands and as she tours the talk show circuit to promote it, she seems to be digging herself into a deeper hole of negative media attention.

"One might find it ironic that the focus of Prejean's book is her battle with bad press," continued Stiehl, "yet she throws herself into the spotlight via inappropriate means, such as naked pictures and sexually explicit videotapes. Hypocrisy might also come to mind as her self-proclaimed Christian faith apparently prevented her from the title of Miss USA, yet that didn't stop her from receiving pageant-funded plastic surgery.

"'I don't think there's anything wrong with getting breast implants as a Christian,' Prejean said according to EOnline. 'I don't see anywhere in the Bible where it says you shouldn't get breast implants.'

"The Bible also doesn't discuss the morality of having a sex tape or topless photographs," Stiehl observed, "but that's beside the point. Personally, I don't think people should be so hard on her."