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After Miss California firing, what’s next for Carrie Prejean?

Now that Miss USA beauty pageant runner-up Carrie Prejean has been ousted as Miss California, what is next for the college student who became a poster woman for supporters of traditional marriage? It has been a tumultuous couple of months for Prejean, ever since her televised answer in response to a question about gay marriage, in which she said that she does not agree with it.

Miss California pageant officials say that the 22-year-old Prejean’s firing has nothing to do with her political stance on gay marriage (even though they disagree with it) and everything to do with her violating her contract and refusing to make appearances. For her part, Prejean told celebrity news website TMZ.com on Wednesday that her elimination by pageant officials was, indeed, political.

“They don’t agree with the stance that I took …” Prejean told TMZ. “They don’t like me. From day one they wanted me out and they got what they wanted.”

A spokeswoman for Prejean was not immediately available.

Gay rights advocates describe Prejean as simply a telegenic spokeswoman for discrimination. But she also has her supporters among conservatives, who call her public support for traditional marriage brave. As a result of the gay marriage controversy, her public profile has far outstripped that of Miss USA, Kristen Dalton of North Carolina. Will Prejean’s being stripped of her title by Miss California pageant organizers simply raise her profile more than if she had kept the sash?

Back in April, Prejean signed on with the National Organization for Marriage, a group opposed to same-sex marriage, to appear in a political television advertisement that re-broadcast her comment about gay marriage. But at the time, Prejean made it clear that her appearance in the TV spot did not mean she was a spokeswoman for the organization. Following her firing as Miss California, the National Organization for Marriage said that “Carrie will be free to define her own mission and message from now on.”

Does that mean that she will once again take to the airwaves to support traditional marriage? If so, will her views have a real effect on the national debate over gay marriage? Or will she just be another pretty face?

Miss California keeps her crown — and her opinions

So Miss California Carrie Prejean gets to keep her crown.

While Prejean, 21, hit the headlines last month for her opposition to gay marriage, it was the emergence of topless photos of the beauty queen that threw her reign into doubt.

At a packed news conference in New York City on Tuesday, Miss USA pageant owner Donald Trump said he had viewed the photos, some of which he described as beautiful and others as risque, and deemed them acceptable.

Prejean said some of the photos — showing her topless but covering her breasts — were taken by a friend for applications for modeling agencies and not for publication. Others that showed her baring her breasts were taken on a windy cliff when she was not aware that she was being photographed, she said.

It was Prejean’s views on gay marriage, and the strident reaction to them, that threw her into the national spotlight in the midst of heated debates over same-sex weddings, which have recently been legalized in five U.S. states but banned in a California referendum in November.

Prejean expressed her opposition to gay marriage last month while answering a question from gay celebrity blogger and judge Perez Hilton at the Miss USA pageant where she came second. She said her answer cost her the Miss USA crown.

“I exercised my freedom of speech and I was punished for doing so. This should not happen in America. It undermines the constitutional rights for which my grandfather fought (in World War Two),” an emotional Prejean told reporters.

Miss California vs. Perez Hilton = Marriage debate

On Sunday night, Miss North Carolina Kristen Dalton was crowned Miss USA, but all the talk on Monday was about how runner-up, Miss California Carrie Prejean, fueled the gay marriage debate by saying during the telecast that she does not agree with same-sex weddings.

On Monday, Prejean told Access Hollywood that she sticks by her answer, despite the uproar from gay rights supporters.

“It did cost me my crown,” she said. “I wouldn’t have had it any other way. I said what I feel. I stated an opinion that was true to myself, and that’s all I can do.”

Celebrity blogger Perez Hilton, who was one of Miss USA’s judges and asked Prejean the question about gay marriage that got her into trouble, had a different take. In an expletive-laced online video blog, the gay self-proclaimed “Queen of All Media” said after the telecast that Prejean should have just avoided the question. “She lost not because she doesn’t believe in gay marriage, she lost because she’s a dumb (expletive),” Hilton said.

It’s significant that Hilton asked Miss California about gay marriage, because the state’s voters approved a ballot measure in November banning same-sex weddings. Since then, the Iowa Supreme Court has legalized same-sex marriages and the Vermont legislature has made the unions legal in that state.

Hilton and Prejean gave the country something to talk about, other than gowns and make-up. But since many of those in the audience at Miss USA are gay, perhaps Hilton was right that Prejean just did not know how to play to the home crowd. As model and Miss USA judge Claudia Jordan told celebrity Web site TMZ, “She should have known her audience better. There’s only like five straight guys in the audience at the pageant.”