Posted on 09/23/2002 9:17:56 AM PDT by gubamyster
September 23, 2002, 10:15 a.m.
On Saturday night, more than ten million people watched the crowning of the best woman to repair the tarnished image of the nation's premier beauty pageant. The new Miss America may soon do the same for conservatives.
There are no topless photos floating around of the new Miss America, Erika Harold, because she'd never put herself in that position — she is a leading advocate of abstinence and embraces her own virginity with enthusiasm.
Miss Harold is a collection of contradictions: A Miss America who refuses society's conventions about beautiful people basking in promiscuity, an intellectual who communicates simple messages free of condescension, and a conservative who embodies the "compassionate" without forsaking the "conservative."
It is easy to understand why the USA Today last week dubbed her "the smart one"; I learned this firsthand meeting her earlier this year, when she was an in-studio guest on a nationally syndicated talk-radio show. Her graceful eloquence on a wide range of political topics is uncommon for a 22-year-old, but then again, that probably helps explain why she's headed to Harvard Law School next year after her reign as Miss America ends.
Ironically, Harold thought of quitting pageant life a year ago, convinced that judges would never crown an outspoken conservative as Miss Illinois. She told me two months before the state pageant that she strongly doubted she would win the state title, let alone the national one.
Aside from her work promoting abstinence to teens through the group Project Reality, Harold has dabbled in politics already. She worked for the Illinois gubernatorial campaign of Republican state senator Patrick O'Malley, whose primary passion is defending the unborn, and she is just as strongly pro-life as the candidate.
But Harold eschews fire-and-brimstone conservatism, and instead opts for offering positive messages that people can actually act on. Although she shuns racial spoils that could benefit her — the media has already hyped the fact that she fills out "other" on the race question on the Census despite being part black and part Native American — she does not rail against affirmative action. While sparing no criticism of the racial elites, she emphasizes the steps necessary to achieve true colorblindness.
There is no stronger proof to her commitment to principle than her platform for the Miss Illinois pageant this June. Though some liberal judges at past pageants had acted with borderline hostility toward her stance on abstinence, Harold stuck to her guns and maintained her platform that openly challenges the politically correct safe-sex orthodoxy — a move that she anticipated would hinder her chances for victory.
For reasons owing to internal pageant politics, Harold signed onto Illinois's violence-prevention platform for the national contest. While it's not as trite as pushing "world peace," it's certainly not as gutsy as telling teens to resist their unbridled sex drives. But here's why Harold will shine as a politician: She is cunning enough to know that you can't talk to teens about violence without discussing the risk factors that contribute to dangerous behavior: drugs, alcohol — and teen sex.
If the Miss America pageant is serious about reclaiming its lost luster, it should grant Harold wide latitude in delivering her message to the nation's youth. But if the media ignores her "politically incorrect" abstinence message, the three million teens who acquire a sexually transmitted disease each year will be the ones who lose out.
— Joel Mowbray is an NRO contributor and a Townhall.com columnist.
(wince) Surely there was a better way he could have phrased that.
Do you?
So far, you haven't shown us a point besides possibly the one atop a pin head.
"Talk is cheap," you say. So, whaddaya want? A gyno exam to prove she's telling the truth? Or would you just rather her shut up while the day is ruled by people who see no shame in premarital sex?
If you have a "bad feeling," take some Pepto-Bismol. Your "radar" is no reason to presume before any evidence is available that she's all talk.
Were you born a moron, or do you just work at it real hard?
NOT True!
I challenge you to find ONE post of mine that support Affirmative Action.
Do you?
If you check my profile it states: I am the most conservative member in the Free Republic.
Oooh, whatta witty rejoinder.
You want to know why I'm on your case? Because at last, a young woman is willing to stand up in a high-profile arena to proclaim "I am a conservative and I am saving myself for marriage" fully aware of the brickbats that will be thrown her way, and here you are saying she's probably a hypocrite based on absolutely nothing -- just like a leftist.
I only know about this woman what I am now reading, but I read with the hope that she is everything she claims to be. You, on the other hand, treat her as if she is automatically a liar simply because she makes the claims. When I asked what you want from her to prove herself to you, you say, "I don't want anything."
I don't think fair readers have any question who the "moron" is.
Big deal. So did Britney Spears.
If you are in love with this woman perhaps you should ask her father for her hand in marriage.
Oh, brother. So because Britney Spears was full of it, all other Christian women are too? What is wrong with you?
I like to get weenies like you in a tizzee over trivial observations.
In lieu of spending your time discussing something you really care about, right? Uh huh. Nice try, now that you have shown you aren't capable of a literate or logical response.
Miss America is a champion of virginity, just like Briney Spears. Isn't that special?
That doesn't answer what I asked you. I said, "Do you [call yourself a conservative]?"
She's never taken her top off? How does she bath?
... she is a leading advocate of abstinence and embraces her own virginity with enthusiasm.
Apparently she is not anti-masturbation.
For reasons owing to internal pageant politics, Harold signed onto Illinois's violence-prevention platform for the national contest.
In other words, she wanted desperately to win -- even if if that meant fewer teenage virgins.
Most people will describe me as a liberal.
However I define myself as a conservative, somewhere to the right of Barry Goldwater, slightly to the left of Attila the Hun.
Ain't it cool when someone you've known someone that long and seemingly knew all along they were destined for greatness?
Now if we could only send her to Washington D.C. to teach a few so-called Republican Conservative's a few lessons.
Your modus operandi is to inject a diversionary topic on pro-conservative or pro-Bush threads. You seize on a factoid and magnify it, getting people to argue about something. You have done this for almost two years.
In fact, why should one believe you about anything, since you don't keep your word?
My prediction: you will look at this post and say that I don't think Bush is a conservative.
You are not to be taken seriously, you are not a conservative, and you simply want to disrupt the forum. I have no time for your shenanigans, and I trust others will ignore you as well.
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