Do you ever wonder what happened to Miss California from last year's Miss America pageant who so gloriously defended both "Traditional" marriage and the right to pose nude? I don't. Conservative women like are that are a dime a dozen. Pole Dancing Muslim Beauty Queens from western countries, on the other hand, are not something that you find all too often- welcome to America.

The obvious parallel between this year's pageant and last year's pageant are the runner-ups to the competition- much in the same manner as Carrie defended outdated ideals about marriage- Miss Arizona spoke out in defense of Arizona's strict and in my opinion, defenseless Immigration Laws.

Rina Fakih was the second American Muslim to win the Miss America crown. I doubt her victory was not a case of "Affirmative Action" as the conservative Christians and so-called political pundits would like us to believe as I am pretty sure that there isn't a racial quota in our beauty pageants. Personally, I feel that her victory should remind all of us that not every beautiful woman looks like Christie Brinkley. 

The ugliness surrounding Rina Fakih's victory comes from the same people who are always ugly- if there is such a thing as "inner beauty", there must be an "inner ugliness" as well. Taunting a beauty contestant with racist names such as "Miss Hezbollah" clearly demonstrates both ignorance and racism- ugly qualities in anyone, especially from someone whp reportedly represents "The Press". 

The Conservatives' main complaint  with the newly crowned Miss America is that she hails from Lebanon. I don't understand the basis for their criticism at all. While it's true that a President of the United States is required to be born in this country, the United States Constitution does not yet extend to Donald Trump's Miss America beauty pageant. The other complaint with her surrounds a poorly worded answer she gave concerning birth control, but I'll get to that later. 

As this article points out, it is more than slighly ironic that the criticism is only focused on her country of birth. This radio station posted pictures of her winning a pole dancing competition. There is nothing wrong with Pole Dancing at all, but normally the critiques from the Conservative contigent of our society are very focused on sex as when Vanessa Williams was de-throned for appearing in Playboy over a decade ago.  Come to think of it, Vanessa Williams' race was probably also a big factor in that decision as well.  

You can watch some  pundits and a video of the winner and the runner-up here. Admittedly, the winner was not the most articulate in her answer about birth control, so I can understand criticisms based on that fact. (which is an entirely different thing than complaining about her victory because of her race). 

I do have to question another thing: if pageants and the winners are to represent this country on a world stage: would we have really wanted someone who was that close-minded and obviously racist as Miss Arizona representing us? I don't think so.