What a difference three little words make: “In my country….” This prepositional phrase, which prefaced Miss California Carrie Prejean’s assertion that she was raised to believe marriage should be between a man and a woman only, may well have cost her the Miss USA crown, $50,000 in scholarship money, and the opportunity to represent our nation around the world.

The beauty queen’s response was to judge Perez Hilton’s question about whether the San Diego native and member of the Sanctuary of the Rock Church supports same-sex marriage, an issue that has dominated California – and the nation’s – attention for the past year.

“We live in a land where you can choose same-sex marriage or opposite. 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,” Prejean said.

The fact is, Prejean is an American and is entitled to her opinion. Perhaps it was just another case of a pageant Miss USA trip-up. Although tripping over such words may well exceed the embarrassment of Miss USA tripping over her gown at the Miss Universe pageants the last two years running. But unlike her predecessors, Prejean has extended her 15 minutes of fame, and likely, in the end, benefited far more from her honesty than some might want.

And Perez Hilton isn’t helping matters. Rather than let the issue go quietly into the night, Hilton called Prejean “a bitch” on his blog the following day. Bigot, yes, uniformed, yes, ignorant, yes, but bitch – no. Perez was clearly out of line when he ranted on his blog and owes Prejean an apology.

It isn’t that contestants in past competitions haven’t been thrown a hardball question. Subjects have ranged from stem cell research, to the war in Iraq to the elimination of arts in education. And, likely in each answer, a segment of the population was marginalized – perhaps not in such an alarming way, but, nonetheless, any answer to any question is going to be met with some disagreement. The world of pageantry interview answers that end with “and world peace” may well be over. Prejean – for better or worse – has ushered in the era of moxie and honesty in the interview category. For Perez, this was the cultural equivalent of World War III.

Certainly, any time you say, “with all due respect” and “no offense to anybody out there,” you are not respecting and you are offending. Still, putting the text of the two next to each other, it’s really difficult to compare Prejean’s answer with Hilton’s response and not conclude that Hilton showed himself to be just as much – if not more of – a hater than he was accusing Prejean of being.

In a subsequent interview with Fox News, Prejean said that God was testing her faith with that question. In Rex Wockner’s interview on page 14, Prejean says Hilton “bashed” her. This is clearly someone out of touch with the GLBT community. There are millions of GLBT members of faith. God and gays are not mutually exclusive. And a “bashing” as it applies to the GLBT community generally leaves a person brutally injured or dead.

Just because Prejean represents the Golden State doesn’t mean she holds the views of every resident. The same goes for the governor or senators – all of whom are elected in state-wide races. They don’t represent the views of each and every Californian. That would be impossible.

Ultimately, however, taking her stand against same-sex marriage cost Prejean the crown but has earned her respect. Prejean knew the consequences, and in that moment after she said, “in my country,” you could almost see the wish to retract those words.

But Hilton’s comments – as a visible member of the GLBT community – did not earn him respect. And, frankly, there seems to be no wish to retract his words of calling Prejean “a bitch.”

In the end, Prejean vs. Perez will go down in the books as one of the great debates of pageantry. It’s unlikely that Perez will be invited back to judge, and Prejean will likely reap far more from the controversy than if she had taken the crown. Ask anyone today who is Miss USA 2009 is and you’ll likely get a blank look. Ask them who Carrie Prejean is and, well, you do the math.

And while we still assert that pageants such as the Miss USA, the Miss America, and the Mrs. America competitions are degrading to women, we will end with these thoughts:

In our country, Miss USA will someday be an openly lesbian contestant. In our country, the Mrs. America crown will someday go to a legally married lesbian, while her loving partner looks on with pride. This is what we hope for our country. Oh, and we hope for world peace.