(May 5) - Miss California USA says a revealing photo of herself appearing on the Web is "quite appropriate" for a model, and she has accused the gossip site that posted it of trying to belittle her Christian beliefs.
"I am a Christian, and I am a model," Carrie Prejean said in a statement. "Models pose for pictures, including lingerie and swimwear photos. Recently, photos taken of me as a teenager have been released surreptitiously to a tabloid Web site that openly mocks me for my Christian faith."
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A photo of Prejean wearing only pink panties with her back turned to the camera appeared Monday on the gossip blog TheDirty.com.
The site claimed it had six pictures of the beauty queen, but one had been posted.
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"I can assure you they were quite inappropriate, and certainly not photos befitting a beauty queen," Alicia Jacobs, a judge at the April 19 Miss USA pageant and a reporter for an NBC affiliate, told NBC News.
Prejean, 21, also said in her statement that attacks on her and others who "speak in defense of traditional marriage" are intolerant and offensive.
The Miss USA runner-up garnered more media attention than the winner of the pageant for her response to a question about legalizing same-sex marriage and the dispute with openly-gay judge Perez Hilton that followed it.
Her response may have cost her the title, which went to Miss North Carolina.
During the interview portion of the competition, Hilton, a celebrity blogger, asked Prejean about her views on legalizing same-sex marriage.
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“I think it’s great that Americans are able to choose one or the other. We live in a land where you can choose same-sex marriage or opposite marriage,” Prejean answered. “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.”
Hilton apparently did take offense and lambasted Prejean on his blog and in the media, suggesting her response may have cost her the crown.
Prejean has been outspoken in defending her answer.
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