GayPatriot

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Donald Trump Attempts to Bridge Carrie Prejean “Fault line”

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The whole Carrie Prejean hullabaloo has revealed a fault line in American culture, between the politically correct purveyors of information and ideas in our mainstream media and left-leaning blogs on the one hand and social conservatives, their occasional allies on the secular right and others who favor civil discourse of controversial issues on the other.  Some indeed who, on this issue at least, find themselves on the social conservatives’ side,  do not share their ideological agenda, indeed often quite strenuously oppose it, but do believe in their right to express their opinions, particularly when they do so in a civil manner.

Donald Trump today, in an example of leadership which should inspire the President who won that office promising to change the partisan tone in our nation’s capital, attempted to bridge that gap in American culture while strongly defending Miss Prejean’s right to express her opinion, reminding us that she gave the same answer on gay marriage “that the president of the United States gave. . . . She gave an honorable answer. She gave an answer from her heart.”

Trump refused to criticize anyone by name, parrying a question about Perez Hilton by saying effectively, “That’s just what he does.”  He wisely refused to express his own opinion on gay marriage.

His was a masterful performance.  He stood by a woman who had been maligned in the media and made a plea for civil discourse.  Would that more prominent public figures do the same.

The issue here is not gay marriage per se, but how we debate it.  Let’s learn from Donald Trump and show some respect for those who express their opinions in a civil manner.

This whole hullabaloo has shown that there is a fault line with those who would debate this issue and those who would smear the defenders of the status quo.  Until today, it appeared that the maligners were winning in the media while the great majority of Americans sat silent, stunned at the attacks.

Let us hope that Donald Trump’s defense of Miss Prejean will cause others who favor a serious discussion of this controversial issue to speak out against name-calling and to engage in a real conversation about the meaning of marriage, its place in our ever-changing society and government’s role vis à vis this ancient institution.  We would all benefit from that conversation.

Kudos to Donald Trump for doing something to further than exchange.

Comments

  3. seriously? you’re still talking about this?

    here’s a quick summary:

    carrie p is a dumb bitch.
    perez hilton is a dumb bitch.
    they’re both irrelevant.
    carrie gave her opinion (free speech NOT infringed)
    perez give his opinion (free speech also not infringed)

    seriously…why do we care?

    move. on.

  4. and btw, anyone who argues that carrie’s free speech was infringed doesn’t understand what free speech means. no one tried to ban her from the pageant forwhat she said, and no one tried to arrest her for saying what she did. if anything, carrie’s defenders are against free speech for demanding that people not criticize carrie for her opinion (criticism is also free speech, FYI). did she give an unpopular answer (at least for that audience?)? yes. if they asked her what we should with stray puppies and she says we should slaughter them, people would be free to criticize her, no? free speech goes both ways.

    jesus.

  5. Nice try, bob, but your fellow gay liberal Perez Hilton showed the world what gay leftists like yourself think, and now that you’ve been publicly humiliated, you’re trying to throw him under the bus.

    And, since as Trump pointed out, your Messiah Obama holds exactly the same stance as Prejean, either call Obama a homophobic bigot like you do Prejean or admit that you and your fellow gay liberals like Perez Hilton are hypocrites.

  6. NDT,

    bob won’t condemn President Obama’s stance. After all, he doesn’t want to be on the wrong side of the brownshirts if the President takes the NTY advise and emulates bob’s idol.

  7. Dan: Agreed. I’m past ready to move on.

    Bob: Miss the forest but for the trees, eh? This entire episode is a sideshow in my view, one mainly of Hilton’s making and egged on by leftist activists, but I will say this: what Trump said today that Prejean echoed was spot on. Prejean said nothing different in her initial answer than did Obama or Clinton. A beauty queen’s opinions mean very little in the grand scheme of things, even less that of a gossip critic, but POTUS and the SecState? Those mean a great deal. The President has a short window of getting away with blaming everything upon Bush (some of which is undoubtedly deserved but not all), yet the longer his silence continues the more he will own the laws affecting gays that many of us dislike. DOMA. DADT. Etc. Don’t believe me? As Rosie would say, “Google it!” because quite a number of liberal bloggers and columnists are beginning to say the same thing.

  8. Boob,

    Once again you prove that you read, but you don’t comprehend. No one here has ever claimed anyone’s right to free speech was infringed.

    We merely made the observation that liberals, and particularly gay liberals are once again behaving like hysterical low-life thugs and classless scum.

  10. What I find funny is that in the past here, I’ve noticed conservatives say that free speech is ok, but you have to live with the consequences of what you say. That’s what happened to her. She said something that is clearly unpopular with a certain group of people. I’m not surprised in this day that her background was dug into and something that might not be so morally perfect (of course it’s my opinion that pageant was something akin to soft core porn). And no, nowhere did I see anyone trying to stop her right to free speech.

    And where is exactly does Donald Trump come from on this issue? This guy is morally bankrupt, does anything to get his name in the media and will run from anything negative to absolve himself of responsibility at the drop of a hat (ie, the recent handling of his casino business).

    And Perez Hilton is a gossip columnist, pretty much akin to a lot of Donald Trumps aspects, so here’s one liberal who doesn’t see him as speaking from a political perspective.

    9: Once again, thanks for keeping the respectful tone of the debate.

  11. Who is kidding who? The leftists here say this is just two people expressing free speech? Liberals constantly try to tear down and destroy people who dont’ believe what they believe. They wanted Joe the plumber destroyed for daring to ask Obamatelepromter an honest question that embarrassed BHO. They want Limbaugh destroyed and taken off the air because he doesn’t think like a liberal Stalinist. Do liberal democrats want Fox News to flourish to add to the diverse quilt of American dialogue? No they want Fox News taken down. They want Hannity off the air, Coulter and O Reilly’s books burned. Children caught reading conservative books in school have been berated by “liberal, open minded” members of the NEA. Come on be honest. Liberals want a one party, one thought, 1984, hippie collective. No evil corporations. Every person in America gets the same thing. You shouldn’t have to strive to be great. Just get up and be average. That’s the liberal way. That way no one’s feelings are hurt. Trouble is that experiment ended when the USSR imploded under the weight of millions of people who lost their incentive to excel. They all became wards of the state. All of a sudden there was no excellence, everyone woke up one day and they all refused to leave the house. They assumed the state wouldn’t care. Poof it blew up. Whether it’s free speech or a free lunch, liberal lefitst Democrats are wrong. But I don’t want them stampled out. We should view them and learn from them.

  12. Yes yes, Kevin, we’re well aware the free speech has consequences. Just because you are free to say something doesn’t mean it can’t be criticized.

    But the issue here is how it was criticized. Liberals like Olbermann didn’t just say she was wrong, they attacked her in the most vile fashion. No, you don’t have to dig into someone’s background. If the left had restricted itself to logic and facts this whole thing would not be the issue it was. It was the viciousness of the attack that has us on the right so annoyed.

  13. Someone did beat me to the same comment:

    Boob is a dumb bitch

    Let’s move on

    And for the record, this time at least kudos to Donald Trump for speaking up in defence of Miss California. She said nothing wrong, and she most definitely did not say anything that should be construed as hate speech as claimed by that extra dumb bitch and fag (forgive me for using that expression), Perez Hilton.

  14. carrie p is a dumb bitch.
    perez hilton is a dumb bitch.
    they’re both irrelevant.
    carrie gave her opinion (free speech NOT infringed)
    perez give his opinion (free speech also not infringed)

    seriously…why do we care?

    We care because conservatives, unlike liberals, believe in standing up for what is right. Treating Carrie Prejean the way the loathesome left did was wrong by any decent standard, and contrary to your attempt to draw an equivalency between the two, there isn’t. Prejean did nothing wrong. Perez Hilton and the gay left did everything wrong.

  15. I never thought that Carrie Prejean should have been stripped from being Miss California. She gave an answer to a question that she was asked, one that apparently many people agree with. I don’t know if she violated any rules with the undie shots or becoming a member/spokesperson for NOM. To me, that would be the only basis for removing her, if she did so in violation of rules, but again I agree with Trump here.

    My only issue is her response afterwards. Prejean was the one that brought up free speech and constitutional rights. That was never infringed. She never got charged or arrested for anything she said. Let’s face it. If her answer also included, “I’m glad we live in a country where a White person can marry a Black person of the opposite sex, but I also believe that people should marry within their racial groups. That’s what I always believed growing up,” she also would have had her speech and rights protected. She also would have been stripped of her title. Not only that, I’m guessing that Prejean would have supported such a decision if someone else said that. In other words, it wasn’t about free speech and rights as Prejean claims, and I think she’s smart enough to know it.

  16. Prejean is a public figure and professional bimbo. She has no business flogging political views of any kind. She’s a beauty pageant contestant, fer chrissakes. That’s pretty much the definition of an airhead.

    It’s a mystery why the “Gay Patriot” blog would join up with the religious right wing to promote the bimbo. I can understand the religious people doing it. They hate gay people and will grab any support they can get these days. But why “Gay Patriot”?

    Why are you people latching onto this woman who makes Anita Bryant look like a Rhodes Scholar and promoting her? Do you hate yourselves and gay people so much that you’ll align yourselves with the likes of Carrie Prejean? The whole thing is flat out bizarre, but nothing is so bizarre as a gay blog rushing to the bimbo’s side.

  17. Trump keeps his Miss USA PR going. . .
    Prejean sticks her foot in her mouth after answering the ‘tough question’ posed by Ms Hilton. . .controversary leads to three weeks of ‘news’ for Miss USA program.

    Prejean gets busted for possible skin photos and for contractual issues.

    Trump calls the ‘come to Jesus meeting’ and puts forth a lengthy Press Conference and everyone is happy.

    Prejean keeps her contract, but has to keep her mouth closed and can’t play with the NOM folk. Prejean is either very smart and wants to keep herself in the ‘beauty industry’, or has good legal advice that breaking her contract ‘could jeopardize future endeavors and endorsements.’

    And Prejean got a meeting with the Trump, got to get teary on live television, and got to pronounce her beliefs.

    Trump gets to keep his beauty queen and more PR for his Miss USA project.

    Prejean, (with Trump’s spanking of the gay left,) can no longer be involved with any group such as NOM during her remaining time as Miss Cali.

    Barefoot, BareChested, and silent. . .many thanks to Donald — who during Press Conference deferred to comment on gay marriage but stated he ‘is very well aware of the viewpoints on gay marriage from both sides of the aisle. ‘

    but then again, more and more people had the chance to think about gay marriage.

  18. Hilton is a GOSSIP columnist.
    TMZ is a GOSSIP website/magazine
    This is a story fueled by GOSSIP and enhanced by her Skin pics.
    Trump does what he does best and fuels the story with hype and sanctimony.
    Yet the right wing noise machine bought into it hook line and sinker and somehow thinks that because the beauty pageant contestant keeps her crown it’s a victory and the left has been “humiliated”

    How desperate are you guys for “good” news? First GPW (dutifully following the lead of hugh) tries to link some ballot measures that will likely go his way to the tea bag waving movement, now this.

    Soon you will start claiming that because most people are right handed, the world must be conservative.

  19. Sure, Ms. Prejean has her freedom of speech. But, here is my main sticking point: she violated her signed contract. She appeared on behalf of NOM in commercials, which she was legally not supposed to do. Her crown should be rescinded based on this, & not whether she believes in SSM or not.

  20. ” He wisely refused to express his own opinion on gay marriage.”

    Trump stood up for Prejean, but not for himself. It appears that being against gay marriage is so toxic that people are self-censoring. Let’s not be so afraid.

  22. #17 – OK, I have to ask: gillie, exactly which planet are you from?

    How in the word is Dan “dutifully following the lead of hugh” with his posts? Apparently, your mindset is that everyone with a coherent argument is some kind of mind-numbed robot following some leader’s talking points.

    You know, sort of like how the liberals operate under Dear Teleprompter.

    Try again.

    Regards,
    Peter H.

  24. Donald showed us that he is a class act. His defense of Carrie was excellent. I wonder how he would do in the Oval Office. Will there be a movement in the Republican Party to draft Donald for 2012?

  27. Ding, ding, ding. The match is over. The CombOver wins… great PR, great attention to his beauty show biz, more viewers on the next telecast and he sticks it to the gayLeft for being intolerant, critical, non-accepting and anti-free speech… and points out that the gay Messiah Barack has the same position as Miss California in a sidestep.

    Triple ouch all around. Spanked and put down. Way to go Mr CombOver.

    GayLeft needs to go lick some wounds and touch up that makeup.

  28. #26 – That is not an acceptable answer. Dan was merely citing Hugh as a reference to affirm his own argument. It was not “dutifully following Hugh’s lead,” as if there is some kind of vast right-wing conspiracy here.

    In case you weren’t aware of it, Dan is smart enough to write his own passages while offering good references to others who share his view. That is not the same as taking “talking points” from the man. He didn’t write “as Hugh told me to say…” or “as I discussed with Hugh…”

    Gillie, if you can’t tell the difference between “marching orders” and references, then you are stupider than I thought.

    And that’s STUPID.

    Regards,
    Peter H.

  29. So it’s just ok for her to repeatedly lie to pageant officals and break her contract? Because she did both of those things and should lose her crown.

  31. So it’s just ok for her to repeatedly lie to pageant officals and break her contract?

    Well, since you and your fellow gay-sex liberals and rationalizers for Perez Hilton are suddenly demanding that people be stripped of their crowns for photos, let’s see you attack Miss Rhode Island.

    Where’s the fat faggot Perez demanding that she be stripped of her title? Where are the gay-sex liberals like yourself, Greg, wanting her run out of town on a rail? Nowhere. And that’s what makes the fact that the fat faggot Perez Hilton and the gay community that supports and endorses him are a bunch of lying hypocrites.

  33. #29 – “So it’s just ok for her to repeatedly lie to pageant officals and break her contract? Because she did both of those things and should lose her crown.”

    Once again, a liberal displays her belief that if you have principles and fail (as humans sometimes do) to live up to them, that makes you a “hypocrite.”

    So Greg, in your mind, because Prejean did something wrong as a teenager, she has forfeited forever any right to talk about morality?

    That’s why it’s so much easier to be a liberal…you get to set your own standards (I believe it was right for me….) and if you don’t have any principles, you can’t ever be criticized for failing to live up to them.

    The only drawback is that, well, you’re a liberal and nobody with half a mind wants to be like that.

    Regards,
    Peter H.

  34. Just FYI, here are some questions that I would like to ask Ms. Perez Hilton if I ever got the chance:

    1. Perez, don’t you think it is hypocritical to ask a pageant contestant a question about gay marriage and expect to hear only one answer – yours?

    2. Perez, don’t you think it is wrong for someone like you to be judging a beauty pagent, when it is clear that you don’t appreciate beauty because of your own angry inferiority complex? Wouldn’t that be like Wanda Sykes judging a Mr. Universe competition?

    3. Perez, don’t you think the news media has a double standard because they let you get away with swearing at the contestent, and yet didn’t tell you that you are an absolute ass for doing so?

    4. Perez, why do you think that all the women’s organizations allow people like you to swear at a woman just because she answered your question? Why aren’t they up in arms over what you said?

    Eat your heart out, Katie Couric.

    Regards,
    Peter H.

  37. guess not everyone attending the come to jesus meeting is HAPPY

    Shanna Moekler resigns pageant post over Trump’s decision

    Moakler, Miss USA 1995, decided after the news conference to quit. “I cannot with a clear conscience move forward supporting and promoting the Miss Universe Organization when I no longer believe in it or the contracts I signed committing myself as a youth,” she said in a statement issued by her publicist.

  38. And of course, what is entertaining is that no one has bothered to mention in any of these stories about this hissy fit — sorry, resignation — the fact that Shanna “Tut Tut, Dirty Pictures, Shame Shame” Moekler can be seen in the December 2001 issue of Playboy.

    In all respects.

  40. Did you guys read the part where it said she REVEALED that the pictures where taken? Miss California did not and she also lied about when the pictures where taken. There are also the new topless pictures of her that came out as well as the fact that she missed scheduled apperrances.

    I have no respect for what Perez Hilton did, but remember he’s just an attention whore doing whatever it takes to get more people to his site, just ignore him. But that also doesn’t excuse Miss California from breaking multiple rules, and once again Miss California isn’t in trouble for the pictures by themselves but that she failed to reveal to pageant officials she had taken them and then lied about them.

  41. I have no respect for what Perez Hilton did, but remember he’s just an attention whore doing whatever it takes to get more people to his site, just ignore him.

    Why? Why should Prejean have to ignore the gay community going on TV and calling her a “dumb bitch” and a “cunt”?

  43. How does Perez Hilton represent the gay community? Gay community does not equal one gay man who is famous for drawing cum dripping from celebrities mouths.

    When you decide to attack Perez Hilton instead of making excuses for him, then you might have a point. But, as we see, you care nothing about what Hilton did and quote gossip rag after gossip rag in a desperate attempt to smear Prejean, even to the point where you are claiming as some kind of authority a woman who is whining about a “double standard” when she made pictures like these.

  44. Greg,

    1) I love that you are 10 times more uptight about nude photos than the Religious Right!

    2) If the Miss USA pageant thinks her side-boob pic was a violation of her contract worthy of revoking her crown, they are more than entitled to make that call.

    But guess what? They don’t!

    You lose!

  45. 12: Yes, I saw Keith O. commentaries on her and his “attack” pointed out the hypocrisy of her words as opposed to her personal actions.

    33: Failing yourself personally on your goals/beliefs once or every once in a while isn’t hypocritical; in fact it’s something that probably every person on the planet throughout history has done. Being hypocritical is stating/dictating those beliefs to others, then failing in them on a regular (and most likely) intentional basis. Being hypocritical is something like: Attacking the president of the US for being involved in a secret extra-marital affair while the attacker himself is also engaged at the same time in a secret extra-marital affair at the same time.

    42: Which “gay community” did that? do you mean an individual who said those words? Or perhaps a national gay poll in which a majority agreed those words fit her? Saying Perez Hilton speaks for the gay community is pretty much akin to claims that Fred Phelps speaks for Democrats.

    Once again….keep in mind this topic is about a beauty pageant contestant vs. a gossip columnist. not exactly a national election or negotiation between 2 countries.

  46. “Saying Perez Hilton speaks for the gay community is pretty much akin to claims that Fred Phelps speaks for Democrats.”

    *laugh* you said it, I didn’t.

    And it’s not so much that Mario Armando Lavandeira speaks for ‘the gay community’ as the condemnation of his attacks are few and far between. The ‘gay community’ here at GP being a noted exception.

  49. “laugh* you said it, I didn’t.”

    Many comments have implied that Perez speaks for some sort of monolithic gay community.

    “When you decide to attack Perez Hilton instead of making excuses for him, then you might have a point.”

    He is a disgusting, pathetic, attention whore who I would rather not pay any attention to, so I do my best to ignore him. If it makes you feel better I find him to be a disgusting troll. Once again he became famous for drawing cum dripping from celebs mouths, called a beauty pageant contestant a “dumb cunt” is par for the course for him. He wants any attention he can get just do your best to ignore him.

    Also he should not be considered respectable enough o be a judge at the contest, but Trump probably hoped something that will get him attention would happen and it did. I have to say good job Donald you may be the king of attention whores.

    “1) I love that you are 10 times more uptight about nude photos than the Religious Right!”

    Where have I said anything about photos? I have kept my criticisms to the fact that she failed to reveal the photos were taken and has repeatedly lied about them to cover her ass.

    “2) If the Miss USA pageant thinks her side-boob pic was a violation of her contract worthy of revoking her crown, they are more than entitled to make that call.”

    That’s just it. The Miss California officials think they should have her crown taken away, but Trump doesn’t. Since he owns the pageant he is able to do what he wants. It is also why one of the directors of Miss California quit.

    “even to the point where you are claiming as some kind of authority a woman who is whining about a “double standard” when she made pictures like these.”

    If other posters are allowed to post a vaguely related story I didn’t know about in what I’m guessing is an attempt to discredit me, I thought “I’ll do the same.”