What should we think of Harold’s ‘shocking’ view on gay couple adoption

Surprise, surprise!

Erika Harold, the woman now seeking the Republican Party’s nomination for Illinois attorney general, may have once believed that gay couples were unfit to adopt children.

Would anyone have expected Harold to speak differently back then?

THE REASON I throw out the touch of sarcasm to the statement is that it doesn’t surprise me that someone who identifies herself with the Republican Party would have views on sexual orientation issues that might be considered a touch backward.

I certainly would be surprised if, some 20 years ago, a would-be Miss Illinois contestant would be spouting out talk publicly that could be considered sympathetic to the interests of gay people.

So when I read the report by WMAQ-TV about the recollections of people who were at the Drury Lane hotel in Oak Brook that Harold had less-than-progressive views on the issue, I wasn’t surprised.

I certainly didn’t find it “shocking” (as WMAQ did in the story’s headline). If anything, it would have been newsworthy if a credible Miss Illinois candidate had been willing to say something sympathetic about homosexuals, or adoption, or a combination of the two issues.

AS THINGS STAND, this has become the lone controversy to crop up in the Republican Party’s efforts to take back the state attorney general’s post from the Democrats, as four-term holder Lisa Madigan has decided to step down voluntarily when her term ends in January.

Harold, an attorney and Harvard Law School graduate, tries to present an image of herself as quite moderate and reasonable. To the point where there are some segments of the Republican Party who think she’s really not one of them.

But if all of this is true (for the record, Harold says she has no recollection of what she might have said some two decades ago), it would indicate clearly why a light-skinned black woman with a high education level would be so willing to identify herself as a Republican.

Although I also suspect she’s a Republican because, as a native of Urbana, that’s the local political party of significance in her part of Illinois. A central Illinois Democrat would be virtually irrelevant.

AS FOR WHAT it was Harold said, WMAQ-TV reported that back when she competed for Miss Illinois in 2000, she was asked a question (not as part of the public show, but backstage during interviews by pageant officials) about gay couples and adoption.

It was put to her whether it would be preferable to put a child with a loving gay couple, or with a heterosexual couple even if there were suspicions of child abuse.

Harold supposedly picked the latter, citing religious beliefs for not wanting to expose children to gay people. But as I wrote earlier, she now says she doesn’t remember any of this, and offers up general statements that imply her views have changed.

Which is good. The idea of someone aged 38 (as is Harold now) clinging to views from when she was 20 would be sad. For what it’s worth, this view didn’t help Harold win anything – she fell short in 2000, tried again in 2002 and won Miss Illinois, before going on to Atlantic City to win Miss America in 2003

ALTHOUGH THE ANSWER Harold is alleged to have given in 2000 certainly wouldn’t have been unexpected from a Republican-oriented person. Heck, it is still the attitude of many people who identify with the GOP.

Harold is taking a bit of a haughty attitude. Her official response is to say, “NBC Chicago has chosen to air an unverified story from anonymous sources 12 days before an election about an alleged event that supposedly occurred nearly two decades ago when Erika was 20 years old.” In short, lambast the reporter, rather than acknowledge the issue.

But a part of me wonders if this controversy may wind up gaining Harold a bit of political support – it would convince some people this one-time pageant contestant truly is one of them.

Considering that the few polls taken of this particular race show Harold with a very slight lead over opponent Gary Grasso – and about two-thirds of the electorate still undecided. It could help her win the primary; even if it would position her ideologically in such a way that she’d be likely to lose Nov. 6 to whichever of the eight Democrats now in the running manages to win the upcoming primary election.

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What should we think if World Cup final gets better ratings than Miss USA?

That’s a very real possibility, what with the fact that the Women’s World Cup championship match scheduled for this Sunday will be on the Fox television network, whereas the Donald Trump-owned pageant has been relegated to Reelz (channel 507 on my local line-up).

The show will come to an end Sunday for another four years

I wonder how many people don’t have a clue where to find the channel (I didn’t until I looked it up, and figured out it was one of those channels I usually fly right by while trying to find something worthwhile to watch).

BUT THAT IS the reality, where the women’s national teams from the United States and Japan will play against each other this Sunday, and Trump will give us a girlie show (in the name of scholarship) on July 12.

The Miss USA pageant lost its spot on the NBC network because of the fact that Trump engaged in stupid comments about Mexico – as though someone as gauche as he has any right thinking himself superior to anything on Planet Earth!

That caused NBC, whose holdings also include the Spanish-language Telemundo network, to drop the program, and also for the Univision network that would have carried the pageant into Latin American countries to drop it as well.

There also are a lot of business entities, including the one-time Marshal Field’s now known as Macy’s, who are refusing to be connected to Trump anymore. No more “Trump, the Cologne,” or any other products with his brand name.

HIS GARISH BEHAVIOR for all these decades has always been embarrassing. But now, his tacky mouth may wind up harming him.

Miss USA winds up on a channel people will have to hunt for

Which makes me think, “It’s about time!” The reason I haven’t felt compelled to write anything trashing Trump for his latest Mexico rant is that it doesn’t strike me as being any more stupid than anything else he has ever said or done. I never paid any attention to him, then or now.

So Trump’s program (he owns the pageant) will not draw the kind of television attention it usually gets. Although I suspect enough people will hunt for the program next weekend that it will be rhetorically spun into some sort of “historic” event – for the Reelz network, at least.

Instead, the big event may turn out to be the Women’s World Cup – which has been ongoing for the past month and comes to its conclusion this weekend.

Mexico won't participate this year

THAT GERMANY VS. England matchup that I’m sure some people were desperately hoping would be the championship final will wind up being the consolation match on Saturday.

Instead, we’re going to get that rematch of the 2011 Women’s World Cup, when a 2-2 tie turned into a Japan victory on a shootout. The U.S. revenge comes Sunday? Or will the ideologues be ranting on Monday about the “shame” of losing to Japan in anything?

This may wind up getting decent television ratings because it reflects the reality of the U.S. sporting mentality – U.S. fans will watch soccer if they feel the U.S. team has a good chance of winning the whole thing and dominating everyone they play.

Anything else is considered downright dull. As though the U.S. men’s basketball Olympic Team is the way all sports are intended to be. They’ll watch if they think the United States will get its first Women’s World Cup victory since 1999.

IF ANYTHING, IT will be interesting to see just how much better soccer does than the pageant in the ratings. Although I can already hear the rants claiming that any ratings won’t reflect the reality that some people want to perceive.

What really is more intriguing:  90-plus minutes of the “beautiful game” or learning who will represent the United States at the Miss Universe pageant come early next year?

Considering how Mexico and other Latin American nations are considering not even participating (and the number of pageant winners that usually come from Latin America), could this become the Miss Universe equivalent of the 1984 Summer Olympics – remember all the Soviet bloc nations that dropped out; weakening the overall competition level?

Chastain's moment lives on

Why do I suspect that the upcoming star or personality of Sunday’s Women's World Cup match (remember Brandi Chastain from 1999?) will have longer staying power in our society’s collective memory than whichever bathing suit-clad woman wins the Miss USA pageant the following week?

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Ashley Bond is now an afterthought

Ashley Bond is a native of suburban Streamwood who devoted a significant portion of her life to competing in pageants in hopes of bolstering her chances of success in life. Getting crowned Miss Illinois USA back in December was a sign that she had succeeded.

But now, the woman (right) who represented Illinois at the Miss USA pageant held earlier this week will only have as a claim to fame that she was in the same building when her pageant colleague, Miss California USA Carrie Prejean, put her high-heeled foot in her mouth while trying to talk about gay marriage.

THAT IS THE same Miss California who now claims she lost the Miss USA title (won by a blonde from North Carolina) solely because she expressed her honest opinion, which she claims is backed by the Bible.

Miss California (she may have a real name, but I honestly think most people just think of her as the California blonde) is trying to portray herself as some sort of victim, being penalized for using her right to free expression.

Actually, what she’s being penalized for is being obnoxious enough to think that she can speak out against others, but that no one has a right to criticize her perky self.

It all goes back to Sunday when she was questioned (admittedly, by a snotty weblog publisher who likely is reveling in the stink he managed to create) about whether gay people should have a legally legitimate ability to marry.

IF THE LADY from Southern California had merely said something along the lines of “I do not approve of gay people being married” or “I think marriage is for heterosexuals,” I think she would have managed to tick off some gay rights activists who would have created a stir for a day or two, before moving on to the new “flavor of the month” issue of concern.

But it is the fact that she persists in presenting herself as a victim that is what is most offensive to me, and it is why I am enjoying the thought of her getting dumped on by some of the pompous self-righteous types who populate celebrity-hood in Hollywood.

Her answer to the question itself on Sunday went as follows.

“We live in a land where you can choose same-sex marriage or opposite marriage. And you know what, I think in my country, in my family, I think that I believe that a marriage should be between a man and a woman. No offense to anybody out there, but that’s how I was raised.”

FIRST OFF, WE don’t live in a land where people can choose types of marriage. Despite the actions of some states, marriage is largely defined these days as a heterosexual thing, and there are groups working to ensure it remains that way.

I also have a problem with her thought that opposition to gay marriage was “how I was raised.” That sounds too much like the talk of the old Southern segregationists, who always claimed that Jim Crow and the way of life that separated black people was just the way things were in their part of the country.

But what really ticks me off about her answer, and the reason why I finally felt compelled to write about the Miss USA competition at all, is the latter part of her answer.

That clause about, “no offense to anybody out there.”

I’M SURE SHE will claim she was just using good manners. I claim she is trying to tell people she doesn’t want to hear anyone object to her. This pageant winner thinks she has the final word on the issue.

In short, she’s telling them that she automatically pronounces their opinion wrong, and doesn’t want to hear it.

What she is going to learn is that she doesn’t, in the same way that I don’t either. I’m sure I will get vociferous responses to this commentary from people – both to tell me I’m wrong and I’m right, or that I’m boring them and can’t I find something socially relevant to write about.

Like I said, if she had merely said she objects to gay marriage, I’d defend her right to express that thought – even though I personally would think she is nothing more than a twit for believing that. (My own thoughts on the issue are that the only marriage I ought to be concerned about is one involving myself, everybody else’s is none of my business).

BUT IT IS the fact that she tried to pre-empt criticism of herself that bothers me. That irritation is compounded by her continued talk and use of the Bible to defend herself – citing those same provisions that the social conservatives always use when they want to denounce homosexuality in general.

She even went so far as to tell Fox News Channel that she now sees the question about gay marriage as “a test’ by God, to see if she would stand up for her principles on the issue.

Personally, I think God (however one perceives him) has more important things to do than to act as a beauty pageant judge, asking questions of the contestants. But she thinks she passed, as though we’re all now supposed to reward her for thinking that certain people in society have to accept her criticism and keep quiet about it.

That kind of attitude is one I find “un-American.” It bothers me to the point where I find it distracting that the beauty pageant that really amounts to little more than the Donald Trump Show (he’s the producer of the spectacle that dressed all the contestants in bathing suits that looked like skimpy lingerie) has become bogged down in this rhetoric about gay marriage.

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EDITOR’S NOTES: First, Miss California claims that she should be the “last word” on the issue (http://features.csmonitor.com/politics/2009/04/20/miss-california-sparks-outrage-over-gay-marriage-remarks/), then she says God is testing her faith by having someone (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,517228,00.html) question her. Personally, I have a hard time imagining God (or anyone else) using Perez Hilton for such a divine purpose.

I’d rather pay attention to Ashley Bond than this California controversy (http://www.missillinoisusa.com/ashley_bio.html), or even the winner from North Carolina.