Miss America controversy over cause switch
The Miss America pageant winner traditionally travels the country for a year making public appearances and promoting some personal cause. This year's winner, Erika Harold, made youth violence her personal cause during the pageant — a nice safe cause, since there's no pro youth violence lobby to offend — but after winning she decided to switch her cause to sexual abstinence. The Miss America organization pressured her to stick with youth violence, but Harold refused, and social conservatives have rallied to her cause. On the one hand, I sympathize with the Miss America folks for not wanting their organization hijacked by fundamentalist ideologues. On the other hand, I sympathize with Harold for wanting to talk about what really matters to her, especially after reading this part of the article: "[Harold] was a well-known abstinence advocate before she won the Miss Illinois title on her third try. Each year, she chose it as her platform and made speeches to schools on the issue. But like the other Miss Illinois contestants, she signed a contract in which she agreed to adopt a youth violence platform if she won the state pageant and advanced to Miss America."
On the third hand, the Miss America pageant is an anachronistic pox on our culture, anyone who enters the competition has willingly agreed to be treated like cattle, and who fucking cares what a beauty pageant winner thinks about anything anyway?
See also:
http://archive.salon.com/mwt/feature/2002/10/28/miss_abstinence/index.html
and
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=14275
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