Which crown, Carrie Prejean?

It was an excit­ing moment. Car­rie Prejean’s turn had arrived to answer a ques­tion from a judge dur­ing the final round of the Miss USA pageant. When the ques­tion came, Carrie’s stom­ach turned. The judge wanted to know what she, as the reign­ing Miss Cal­i­for­nia and the poten­tial Miss USA, thought about “gay mar­riage.” She knew what the man wanted to hear. But she also knew what she truly believed.

Car­rie won­dered: should she give the pop­u­lar answer or speak her con­science? She quickly prayed for guidance.

We’ll get to her answer — and its after­math — in a minute. But first, let’s take a quick look at Carrie’s life lead­ing up to the Miss USA pageant. That will help us zero in on the point of this les­son: True mar­riage is worth defend­ing … even when it costs you dearly.

Young love

Car­rie Pre­jean was a shy child but, in high school, she became a four-​​sport ath­lete. Her soft­ball team won a national cham­pi­onship. Then, encour­aged by her par­ents, she joined a youth group at her evan­gel­i­cal Protes­tant church. She found that she loved to learn more about God, his love for her and his love for every­one. This knowl­edge became a source of deep joy for her.

Her par­ents and her church also taught her that her faith and her val­ues would be chal­lenged in the world today. She made a per­sonal com­mit­ment to Christ and to her Chris­t­ian val­ues, pre­pared to deal with the chal­lenges this com­mit­ment would bring.

You really think I’m pretty?

When Car­rie was 17, some peo­ple began insist­ing that she enter beauty pageants. “I didn’t even know what a pageant was,” she told the press recently. But Car­rie had always liked chal­lenges and try­ing new things. The idea that she could be com­pet­i­tive in a beauty con­test stirred her imagination.

Going for it

Car­rie isn’t exag­ger­at­ing when she describes her­self as some­one who can be very enthu­si­as­tic once she decides on a goal. She got the name of a woman who helps orga­nize beauty pageants and called her. When the woman met Car­rie, she seemed impressed. She explained the basics of the pageant and gave Car­rie some infor­ma­tion to look over and some forms to fill out. So it was that, at 17, Car­rie entered her first beauty con­test … and won!

Col­lege!

In col­lege, Car­rie con­tin­ued par­tic­i­pat­ing in beauty pageants. She spent her fresh­man year at a state school, but after prayer and dis­cern­ment decided that she wanted to attend a Chris­t­ian col­lege. She trans­ferred to San Diego Chris­t­ian Col­lege, a school known for pro­mot­ing a strong faith life.

Car­rie greatly enjoyed her new school. She saw the envi­ron­ment of faith and intel­lec­tual chal­lenge as an oppor­tu­nity to pre­pare for the future: She wanted to be a Chris­t­ian leader. She wanted to help bring Christ to oth­ers and make a dif­fer­ence in the world. Most of all, she wanted peo­ple to know the deep sense of sat­is­fac­tion she had found through a per­sonal and prayer­ful rela­tion­ship with Jesus.

Reach­ing out

Besides her stud­ies and her beauty pageant prepa­ra­tions, Car­rie also got involved in out­reach pro­grams to the hand­i­capped and the hurt­ing. She took part in a min­istry to women exploited by pros­ti­tu­tion and pornography.

Beauty strat­egy

Dur­ing this time, Carrie’s atti­tude toward beauty pageants was, “Just be joy­ful and be myself. Be happy with who I am and try to show kind­ness to every­one else.” It worked. Her suc­cesses mounted with each con­test. This past Novem­ber Car­rie won the Miss Cal­i­for­nia USA pageant. She was also voted Miss Con­ge­nial­ity by her fel­low contestants.

Prep­ping

Win­ning the Miss Cal­i­for­nia USA title was excit­ing in itself, but it also qual­i­fied her for the Miss USA pageant. She decided to take a semes­ter off from school to pre­pare for the pageant. She worked out, fol­lowed a demand­ing diet and stud­ied many of the top­ics she might be asked about.

The Miss USA pageant took place in Las Vegas over a two-​​week period. Only the last day of the pageant, April 19, was shown on national tele­vi­sion. Which brings us back to the ques­tion that changed her life.

Fac­ing Down Fear

As the tele­cast began, the host named 15 final­ists. Sev­eral rounds of com­pe­ti­tion fol­lowed until only five girls remained. For the final round, each final­ist would have to answer a ques­tion from a celebrity judge. The girls picked judges’ num­bers from a bot­tle and Car­rie ended up with Judge No. 8 — Perez Hilton.

This man’s real name is Mario Armando Lavan­deira. He is famous for his abra­sive per­son­al­ity and insult­ing com­men­taries on TV and the Inter­net. He is also famous for pro­mot­ing chang­ing the def­i­n­i­tion of mar­riage so gay cou­ples can get “married.”

“Ver­mont recently became the fourth state to legal­ize same-​​sex mar­riage,” said Mr. Hilton. “Do you think every state should fol­low suit? Why or why not?”

This was a loaded ques­tion. Perez Hilton was set­ting Car­rie up to either cave in to pop­u­lar pres­sure or make a fool of her­self in front of mil­lions of people.

Or so he thought.

At first, Car­rie tried to soft-​​pedal her beliefs. “I think it’s great that Amer­i­cans are able to choose one or the other,” she said. “We live in a land where you can choose same-​​sex mar­riage or oppo­site marriage.”

But as she spoke these words, she heard a still, small voice speak­ing to her heart. Which crown did she want more — the Miss USA crown or the crown Christ wanted to give her?

She inter­rupted her­self in mid-​​thought. “And you know what?” she said. “I think that in my coun­try, and 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 and … I think that it should be between a man and a woman.”

Media Firestorm

As Car­rie spoke these words, an imme­di­ate reac­tion rose from the audi­ence. Most peo­ple applauded, encour­aged by Carrie’s brav­ery and hon­esty, but there were also some boos. You prob­a­bly already know that Car­rie lost the contest.

After­ward, a famous tele­vi­sion reporter asked her about Perez Hilton’s ques­tion. Car­rie was sur­prised that such a famous reporter would want to talk to the runner-​​up rather than the win­ner. In her mind, what hap­pened to her was sim­ply a side story. She soon began to find out that this was not just a side story. It had already become national news.

Dig­ging up dirt

In May, a celebrity-​​gossip blog ran a photo of Car­rie par­tially undressed. Her back was to the cam­era, and the image was not espe­cially racy by today’s stan­dards, but the orga­niz­ers of the Miss Cal­i­for­nia pageant announced that they were inves­ti­gat­ing. Car­rie, they said, might have her Miss Cal­i­for­nia title taken from her.

Speak­ing in her own defense, Car­rie stated that she had posed for the shot when she was 17 and pur­su­ing a career as a model. She objected to the release of the photo.

“I am a Chris­t­ian, and I am a model,” she said. “Mod­els pose for pic­tures, includ­ing lin­gerie and swimwear pho­tos. Recently, pho­tos taken of me as a teenager have been released sur­rep­ti­tiously to a tabloid Web site that openly mocks me for my Chris­t­ian faith. I am not per­fect, and I will never claim to be.”

She has also pointed out that she was “naive and young” at the time of the pho­tog­ra­phy and regrets hav­ing made the deci­sion to pose for that par­tic­u­lar shoot. Mag­gie Gal­lagher, head of the National Orga­ni­za­tion for Mar­riage — which works to keep mar­riage between one man and one woman — spoke out in Carrie’s defense. “You don’t have to be a per­fect per­son,” said Gal­lagher, “to have the right to stand up for marriage.”

“You’re fired!”

The media cir­cus fol­lowed Car­rie around for weeks. Then, on June 10, the final ax fell. Car­rie was stripped of her Miss Cal­i­for­nia crown. This was the title that had got­ten her into the Miss USA pageant to begin with.The orga­niz­ers of the Miss Cal­i­for­nia pageant claimed Car­rie had not been coop­er­a­tive in car­ry­ing out her duties. Car­rie dis­puted that claim.

“They don’t agree with the stance that I took [on gay mar­riage],” she said. “They don’t like me. From Day One they wanted me out, and they got what they wanted. … I was very respect­ful of peo­ple even when they slan­dered me and humil­i­ated me,” she added. “I have not once stooped down to their level.”

With these words, and with her accep­tance of embar­rass­ing defeat, Car­rie showed the world what Chris­t­ian for­give­ness looks like.

A Crown lost, a crown gained

Car­rie may have been stripped of her crown as Miss Cal­i­for­nia, but she cer­tainly can stand tall. She has been given a crown of courage, even if many mock her and call her a hyp­ocrite. She has stood up for mar­riage at a time when it is extremely impor­tant to do so.

Mar­riage really mat­ters. It mat­ters for all of soci­ety. Car­rie has done her small part to wit­ness to the beauty and truth of mar­riage.

Bat­tles ahead

What does Car­rie Prejean’s future hold? That remains to be seen. She still has many choices ahead of her.

One thing is for cer­tain: The bat­tle for the truth about mar­riage will con­tinue. Legal experts fore­see a very heated and dif­fi­cult bat­tle, because, with the approval of gay “mar­riage” in many states, the Chris­t­ian view of mar­riage may be con­sid­ered big­oted “hate speech” by government.

We Catholics, too, will be called on to defend mar­riage. Will we have the courage to stand firm as Car­rie Pre­jean did — even when it means los­ing some­thing we have worked hard for? When we expe­ri­ence loss, we can remem­ber that noth­ing is truly lost when we stand up for truth.

On the con­trary, we help oth­ers. Let us con­tinue to speak the truth with love. Christ will give us our crown, and we will know the hap­pi­ness of hav­ing helped oth­ers with our lives.