Ok, so this is funny. The Internet is a wonderful place.
Jill at Feministe has a great post on the right wing's wailing about liberal "intolerance" toward Carrie Prejean. The short of it is that by mocking and criticizing her answer at the Miss USA pageant about same-sex marriage, we are engaging in religious persecution. It's a matter of equivalence: Gays can't legally marry and people make fun of a beauty pageant contestant.
The best part is Jill's response to the standard "you liberals are intolerant of my intolerance" line:
To take the FOTF guy’s argument a step further according to his own logic, he’s now the one who’s being intolerant (again!) for not tolerating my intolerance of Miss California’s intolerance.
See how stupid this game is?
What Jill fails to acknowledge is that she's being intolerant of his intolerance of her intolerance of Miss California's intolerance.
Anyway, what's really great about this is how I decided to pay a visit to Perez Hilton's website because, and I'm quoting Jill again,
While that entry was buried by the time I got there, Hilton's mad skillz with MS Paint are on display in most of his posts. To give him credit where due, I don't think Hilton takes himself or his MS Paint projects very seriously.
Imagine my surprise, then, when I found among the penis microphones and a declaration that Will Ferrell likes pee pee a thoughtful, insightful post. It's from Miss California 2003, which frankly is another surprise for me because I don't generally view beauty contestants as being the intellectual cream of the crop. That's a confession, by the way, of a prejudice that probably isn't very fair.
Anyway, Nicole Lamarche is now a pastor and has some very good things to say about this issue. It's too good to merely quote some bits, so the full text follows the jump. And feel free to head over to Hilton's site, especially if you've never seen it. It's a hoot.
Nicole Lamarche, Miss California 2003 and now an ordained minister at Cotuit Federated Church in Cotuit, Mass, is speaking out.
She says:
"As a pastor and a former Miss California, I am often asked to interpret what the Word of God has to say on a particular subject. I am quite confident that God prefers that we human beings stick to speaking for ourselves. And yet there are occasions when God’s Word is used as a weapon, and I feel compelled to speak.
In the past few days, much has been made of the words of Miss California USA, Carrie Prejean. She stated that marriage is between a man and a woman. I write not in response to her opinion, but rather about her comments that followed: that the Bible condones her words. She said, 'It's not about being politically correct, it's about being biblically correct.' While this sentiment is shared by many who seek to condemn gay people and gay marriage, citing pieces of the Bible to further one’s own prejudice fails to meet the Bible on its own terms.
Most people seeking to condemn gay people point to the Book of Leviticus, where we read that men lying with men is an abomination. However, we rarely hear of other verses found in the book of Leviticus that are equally challenging. For example, Leviticus also tells us that eating shrimp and lobster is an abomination. And that a person should not wear material woven of two kinds of material—an impossible mandate for a pageant contestant!
In Paul’s letter to the community in Corinth we read, ‘For it is shameful for a woman to speak in church….’ And yet these words have not prevented Christian denominations from ordaining women, such as myself. Sadly, the Bible has been used to further prejudice throughout history. We have used it to permit ourselves to enslave people; to conquer and kill; and to denigrate the earth.
The truth is that it is difficult to know for sure the intentions of the biblical authors, but we do know something about God. Those of us who know God through Jesus of Nazareth know that he went to great lengths to express God’s love to people who were labeled as outcasts. He spent time with children, prostitutes, and lepers, all of whom were labeled as outside of the grasp of the Holy. As we continue to seek God’s vision for us as a nation grounded in a love for justice, I pray that we might move closer to the cause of grace.”
