Excellent post. Couldn't agree more with you about Perez Hilton - a loathsome publicity-sucking whore if there ever was one. The pageant concept is painfully anachronistic and there's no serious reason for someone like Hilton to be there except to generate controversy. And who really expects these contestants to be thoughtful or enlightened? She couldn't even articulate her own opposition to gay marriage with grace - she just started rambling on in a way that ought to make any reasonable person wince. I thought her answer was stupid and shallow, but it was just bizarre for Perez to ask the question in the context of a beauty pageant anyway.