My wife was channel flipping and caught the last several minutes of the Miss USA competition. (Not to be confused with the Miss America competition.) Apparently Miss Louisiana (from Baton Rouge and featured in the Baton Rouge Advocate that week) was already out of the running.
I left the room and missed something interesting. One of the judges Perez Hilton (entertainment blogger and openly homosexual – which is fair enough) asked Miss California what she thought about legalizing same-sex marriage. She replied that she was not in favor of it.
Well. Apparently there was some shouting about this even at the competition. Perez Hilton is now on record as explaining that her answer cost Miss California the win and moreover she is a “dumb b*tch”. I have been pleased to see many(? some?) people who favor same-sex marriage and also who are homosexual say “I disagree with her but support 100% her freedom to say that” (implying perhaps that what she said should not have cost her the crown of Miss USA).
“Reverend Woody Hol” at Big Hollywood describes brilliantly the situation in which Miss California was placed:
After all, if there is only one correct answer to a question, it seems a bit disingenuous to ask it. Almost as though the question is less of a, well, question, meant to ascertain a point of view, and more of an old-fashion loyalty test, meant to vet out apostates before they are allowed to ascend too far in this world. You might be thinking Miss Prejean should not have been asked such a question in the first place, should not have been set-up to fail, should not have been tested thus. You might feel that by asking someone an honest question, the questioner is inherently signifying that they don’t have a strangle-hold on truth, and that to bait someone with an interrogative sentence that is really no question at all is actually dishonest.
Read the whole thing here. You do not have to register.
Perez Hilton’s question was not really a question. Moreover it was dishonest.
There is much that can be said about the “question” and what it tells us about the campaign for same-sex marriage about popular culture about the trajectory of American culture. But the satire by “Reverend Hol” reminded me of an important insight into how Jesus responded to questions.
Although he insists he does not remember it there is a young man (about to attend Massachusetts Institute of Technology) in the congregation I serve who first brought this to my attention.
How does Jesus answer questions? It depends on the nature of the question.
He observed a pattern:
- If it is an honest question (the person wants to know what Jesus has to say) then Jesus answers the question.
- If it is a dishonest question (the person only wants to trap or test Jesus) then Jesus answers the question with a question of his own. “Should we pay taxes to Caesar or not?” “Whose name and inscription are these?”
- And finally there are some questions that Jesus does not answer at all except with silence. This seems to happen rarely and at his trials. “How do you answer these charges? These are serious accusations against you!” Jesus does not answer. Because he knows how this will end and he has no desire to defend himself? Perhaps because it makes no difference whatsoever how he replies. Interestingly only when during his trials the questions focus on who Jesus is does he reply. “By the living God I order you to tell me. Are you the Messiah?” “Are you the king of the Jews?”
I have no idea how the judges might have scores Miss California if she had followed the example of Jesus in #2 above. “What do you think about legalizing same-sex marriage?” “Well Perez let me ask you a question”. Nor do I have a clear idea exactly what question Ms Prejean could have asked that would shift the burden of answering back onto Perez Hilton. And although in a sense it is their job to think fast and answer well on the spur of the moment I know from experience that the answer you must give now and in the next 15 seconds! is seldom the answer you could give with more time to think and compose your reply.
