Perso, we think the Q&A segments of beauty pageants are the most illuminating...and it's also where the contestants seem to get into the most trouble (exempli gratia: Miss California Carrie Prejean's defense of "opposite marriage" at Miss USA back in 2009).
FoxNews.com's "Pop Tarts" reports that this year's Miss USA hopefuls are being asked the tough questions in on-camera interviews for the event's website -- whether evolution should be taught in classrooms and if they'd pose for nude photographs -- prompting certain mouthpieces to wonder if the pageant is pushing for a Prejean repeat.
Publicist Angie Meyer told Fox News, "The pageant officials are intimidating contestants into answering questions a certain way that are deemed 'politically correct' while discriminating against their own belief and opinions." Keith Lewis, the executive state pageant director for California, New York and New Hampshire, added, "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."
Fox News also points out that some fine folks from the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) were given free tickets to the June 19 show by its organizers, that "HRC are prominent champions for the legalization of gay marriage, the very topic that sparked the Prejean pandemonium two years ago," and that incidentally the group is holding a leadership summit in Las Vegas that very same weekend. Well, then maybe they should all hang out. Talk about some human rights and stuff. What do you think?