As we reported at the beginning of the week Miss Tennessee Ashley Durham was the first runner up in this year’s Miss USA pageant, being narrowly edged out by Miss California Alyssa Campanella whose mature and thoughtful response to the judge’s questions, including one about her opinion on the legalization of marijuana, helped earn her the Miss USA tiara. Now it would seem that her answer is not the only one that had a profound effect on the judges and their final decision between her and Miss Tennessee.
Penn Jillette, the more outspoken half of the illusionist duo Penn and Teller and one of this years guest judges recently took to twitter with his thoughts on Miss Tennessee’s answer to a similarly complex question. The question asked of Miss Tennessee was whether or not she thought burning religious items, such as a copy of the Koran, should be afforded the same constitutional protection as flag burning. Her response was that burning religious items “crossed a line” and should not be protected by the constitution, this apparently did not sit well with Jillette, an outspoken supporter of first amendment rights, who tweeted “I ‘judged’ Miss USA. ‘Miss’ TN was asked about burning the Koran and she negated the whole First Amendment. F–k her. Glad to help her lose.”
Miss Tennessee obviously felt the sting of Jillette exercising his first amendment rights saying in a statement released yesterday that she’s disappointed with his comments and that it was uncalled for that he would delight in shooting down her dreams. However by the time her statement was released Jillette had already moved on to a series of combative tweets he has since been exchanging with those who support Miss Tennessee instead of his viewpoint on the first amendment.
Whichever side of this particular battle you happen to come down on, I think it is safe to say we can all agree that future contestants in the Miss USA pageant better be ready for some serious political and philosophical debate!
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