Trump And Hilton- Perfect Together

With the broadcast media atwitter (at least when I first thought to write this) about the Miss California/gay marriage controversy, I've been given an excuse to blog about it.

But what about it? Perhaps about Carrie Prejean's opposition to gay marriage, wherein, unintentionally echoing Barack Obama, she stated definitively "I think that I believe that a marriage should be between a man and a woman." No, despite the best efforts of some on the left and some on the right, most people still hold dear the principle of freedom of expression.

Maybe the ignorance of the response, when Prejean contended "We live in a land where you can choose same-sex marriage or opposite marriage." She was probably very nervous and, anyway, I'm confident that given time, she and Matt Lauer (video below) the following day would have lapsed into a thorough analysis of the applicability to gay marriage of the full faith and credit clause of the United States Constitution.

Or perhaps the judge, celebrity blogger Perez Hilton, who the day after he asked the (in)famous question of Prejean called her "a dumb b_ _ _ _ _." And later compounded the narrow-minded rudeness by declaring "I don't apologize. Over the course of the past 24 hours, the more I've thought about it, the more – you know what? – No, I'm going to stand by what I said just like she's standing by what she said. And I called her the 'b' word, and hey, I was thinking the 'c' word." And on the Today Show, Hilton said Prejean should have "left her politics and her religion out because Miss USA represents all Americans," a telling remark given that the beauty queen had
mentioned nothing about religion or Christianity.

But a sense of superiority is almost a job requirement in Hollywood. Check out the consescension and religious bias in the reaction of Keith Lewis, the Executive Director of Miss California USA/Teen USA:

As co-executive director of Miss CA USA and one of the leaders of the Miss CA family, I am personally saddened and hurt that Miss CA USA 2009 believes marriage rights belong only to a man and a woman. Although I believe all religions should be able to ordain what unions they see fit, I do not believe our government should be able to discriminate against anyone. Religious beliefs have no place in politics in the Miss CA family.

"Saddened and hurt?" The beauty contestant expresses bigoted views that Lewis believes are antithetical to human rights or civil rights, and Lewis is "saddened and hurt?" Appalled perhaps, but hardly "saddened" that someone in his "Miss California family" has expressed a dissenting opinion. Pretty fickle, that "family."

No, Lewis' response only solidifies the stereotypical image America has of Hollywood values. Rather, the most disturbing aspect of this affair might be expressed as: What was Donald Trump, Executive Director of Miss USA, thinking?

Donald Trump- or "the Donald" as the adoring media like calling him- is a giant of American business- real estate, casinos, hotels, even television. And surely he knows all about this fellow Hilton, whom gay supporter of same sex marriage Charles Karel Bouley described in The Huffington Post as

a person who is famous for smearing snarky and crude things over celebrity photos and following Brittney's every move. He lives for controversy and is only famous for it: not his overwhelming political activism, not his witty insights into the psyche of America or even the gay community, not even thought provoking conversations; no, he's a fame whore and he does it very, very well.

Donald Trump has not commented on the tirade of one of the guys he chose to be a judge of a beauty pageant millions of Americans are interested in. But it is a perfect marriage of of a sort: Hollywood and the corporate mogul, both contemptuous of traditional American values and Americans, convinced that their way is the only way.