CNN (as well as just about every news agency and tabloid under the sun!) is reporting that Miss California USA Carrie Prejean will be allowed to keep her crown, despite the recent controversies surrounding her title, her contest answer to a politically charged question, and modeling photographs that are showing up on the internet.
The final decision–for reasons most people would never expect–did not land with pageant organizers or a talent agency or the courts or even public sentiment. Nope, the decision rested with “The Donald,” Donald Trump himself. And he made it after a brief meeting with Ms. Prejean.
“We’re in the 21st century,” he said, explaining to reporters the Ms. Prejean is a model and that she had acted within accepted parameters for that business. Oh, but this was about so much more than that, some of it good and some of it not so good.

Ms. Prejean stood up for her beliefs in a pageant known more for politics and perception rather than substance, and that’s good.
Ms. Prejean’s controversy had more to do with her stance about same-sex marriage than it did modeling pictures, and that’s bad.
Ms. Prejean knew her answer in the Miss Universe pageant could well cost her the title and she said it anyway, even adding a gentle word of sensitivity to those who would disagree, and that’s good.
Ms. Prejean’s opinion that “marriage is between a man and a woman” would not have even been a controversy throughout much of our nation’s history, and that’s bad.
Ms. Prejean answered a politically charged question with a spiritual response and she has stated so repeatedly. Her core faith convictions won out over a lust for celebrity or the prize of being the pageant winner, and that’s most especially good not only for her but for all that a pageant should be about–role modeling for young people watching.
But she’s been criticized for it and sensationalized for it, and it’s become a political (rather than a spiritual) issue and that’s bad for everyone except the media.
The Donald put an end to all that with a simple decision. This was one time that a corporate top-down hierarchical structure actually worked. No one’s gonna say “You’re Fired” to Mr. Trump. Had this decision been anyone else but the boss’s, her title would have disappeared.
In the end, how fun, that agreement was actually found between the Focus on the Family faithful, the slick beauty of pageants, and the esteemed Mr. Trump. Ah, the wonder of culture when matters of faith and political correctness collide!