Robert Stacy McCain

May 05, 2009

CARRIE PREJEAN NUDE! OK, you probably don’t care if Carrie Prejean is doing naked somersaults down Broadway, but some people apparently think we’ll be shocked to discover that the Miss California USA beauty queen was once photographed topless.

It was one of those demurely posed, back-to-the-camera shots—what my older brother the semi-pro cheesecake photographer calls “implied nudity”—that really isn’t that big of a deal to most people. Yet the gay-rights militants who have demonized Miss Prejean for daring to oppose same-sex marriage think that this is the smoking gun that will destroy Carrie’s credibility.

But a funny thing happened on the way to the humilating scandal: Christians remembered why they are Christians. Here’s pro-life activist Becky Brindle:

Christians recognize that all people are born with a sin nature and therefore need to repent and be saved by the blood of Christ. Salvation is open to all mankind. Everyone sins. Everyone needs saved. . . .
If making a mistake in your life exempts you from taking a stance against other actions you disagree with for the rest of your life, then every person on earth would have to remain completely silent on every ethical or moral issue forever. Is that what they want?

Of course, this is exactly what they want, and Christian conservatives are courageously refusing to let them have what they want. Maggie Gallagher of the National Organization for Marriage and Wendy Wright of Concerned Women for America are both standing firmly in Miss Prejean’s defense. They have apparently decided that marriage is “a hill to die on.”

My traditionalist friends may be surprised—or probably not surprised—to learn that I have been excoriated by some Republicans in the blogosphere who think it is simply awful that (a) I’m willing to speak blunt truths about this kind of stuff, and (b) I don’t mind exploiting Google algorithms to generate extra traffic to my blog. I figure if someone’s Googling for “carrie+prejean+nude,” it’s better they land on my blog than on some sleazy gossip site run by a gay leftie. And hey, I’m a capitalist.