Miss USA Contestants: Is Evolution OK for US Schools?

Miss USA contestants have been asked for the upcoming beauty contest if evolution should be taught in US schools. In a seemingly unrelated question, they are also to be asked if they would ever pose nude for photographers. It is not clear what the correct answer to either question is supposed to be.

My understanding is that the questions have already been asked, and the videos of the answers will eventually be posted on the Miss USA web site. Which is a site I only view for the important social issues discussed there.

"The girls are scared to death. They witnessed with Carrie Prejean how a firestorm can create a road kill, and nobody wants to be part of a situation like that again," said Keith Lewis, who was embroiled in the Prejean saga in 2009, and is now the executive state pageant director for California, New York and New Hampshire. "The girls are concerned that there is a right or wrong answer. Polarizing questions often create a situation where you suffer ... if you agree, and if you do not. The girls need to answer in a way that brings them to a common ground."

Carrie Prejean was representing California in the 2009 Miss USA pageant when she was asked a question about gay marriage during the live telecast. "I think that I believe that a marriage should be between a man and a woman," she said. "No offense to anybody out there, but that's how I was raised."

Prejean came in second, and told FoxNews.com that she thought her answer cost her the crown. Later, after nude photos were published, she lost her Miss California sash... bla bla bla

More, details.

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If they know the questions beforehand, it would give them time to prepare. That would give them a chance to come up with effective non-answers. For example, on the evolution/creation in schools one answer might be "schools should teach students the the most up to date science available while at the same time teaching them to think critically".

The same kind of answer many politicians give.

Poor girls. They already have to do the Madonna/Whore balancing act--parade your booty, be an object, but not a too-sexually-explicit object because that's naughty--now they have to answer polarizing questions, because it's a way for the producers to drum up some manufactroversy and get some attention for a silly ritual that's been losing viewers for years America needs to know what beauty contestants think about evolution.

Asking beauty pageant contestants for their opinion on science education policy is like.....

Possibly asking US Presidential candidates whether they believe in evolution?

Actually, I think a large number of my brain cells just committed suicide.

Back to the regeneration tank for me!

They still have "beauty pageants"? Inner-Ugliness Pageant (IUP) is more like it. Then again, there are so many morons in this world, why shouldn't I be surprised?

Prejean was likely under the ill-informed impression that watchers of IUPs were like NASCRASH and football fans - mostly rightwing nutbags, or maybe she "thought" that "beautiful people are christards, atheists are ugly". She was obviously uninformed (surprise, surprise) that there were many pro-gay people involved. Who didn't know that, with all the hairstylists and dressmakers involved?

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