The Kansas CW | Miss Kansas Reacts To Gay Marriage Controversy
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by Jim Grawe (PRATT, Kan.)
Anyone who honestly shares their opinion on gay marriage is likely offend somebody.
Miss California's opinion wasn't what the gay activist judge who asked the question at the Miss USA pageant wanted to hear.
"I was shocked!" Perez Hilton told CBS News.
This is what shocked him: Miss California said, "You know what, in my country, and in my family, I think that I believe that marriage should be between a man and a woman--no offense to anybody out there. But that's how I was raised. And that's how I think that it should be, between a man and a woman. Thank-you."
Many believe MIss California's response cost her the crown.
That answer is not politically correct in today's culture. Answers to questions like that carry a lot of weight in pageants with a lot riding on every impromptu answer
Miss Kansas Emily Deaver says those questions are not easy. Deaver says she was asked the same question at the Miss America pageant.
"I answered that I believe people should have the choice on who they marry," Deaver says.
But while Deaver's opinion is different, she says Miss California seemed to answer the question well.
"In the pageant that I'm in, Miss Kansas, we work on just being yourself," Deaver says. "People are going to be able to see through that if you're not."
The point of the questions is not to decide whether a contestant agrees with the judges on issues according to Sharon Will. Will judges local pageants for Miss Kansas.
"I just want to see that she can strongly back it up and be strong in her opinion regardless of what other people think," Will says.
Both Will and Deaver agree the question was a fair one.
Meanwhile the difference of opinion on gay marriage between Miss Califonia and Miss Kansas may show one thing.
"We got the swip swop here," Deaver laughs. "Kansas thinks yes, California thinks no."
There may be no right or wrong answer, expect maybe at the Miss USA Pageant.
