Anyone with half a brain can see that Miss California was a victim of ideological sodomy perpetrated by blog "queen" and pageant judge Perez Hilton. She wasn't the first, and the inexorable advance of gay marriage through the courts guarantees that she won't be the last. In fact, you won't have to answer a loaded question at a beauty pageant to be victimized. You may just have to have a child in public schools or go to a job interview. The legalization of gay marriage means little to marriage itself, but it means everything to your freedom of religious expression. In our age of moral relativism, legal is as good as normal is as good as moral.

The closest analogy to the prohibition of gay marriage is the law against mixed-race marriages common in southern states over 50 years ago and proponents of gay marriage are quick to use it, but the analogy fails at a critical point--there is no biological or credible moral argument in support of miscegenation laws. "Races" are genetically superficial and nothing prevents people of different races from having healthy offspring. There is also no "divinely revealed" morality in any religious text that forbids people of different races from marrying. If there is any injunction against marrying foreigners, it's based on cultural and religious differences, not race.

The reasons for prohibiting homosexual marriage have generally been understood as being naturally self-evident throughout history, whether or not a specific religious motive existed. Ironically, in an age of sophisticated science, it seems we've forgotten some basic facts of physics and biology. Our abundance of education has led to a dearth of wisdom. Ask any high school educated farmer whether he prefers homosexual or heterosexual livestock. Now, we live in a society in which children are a luxury, so perhaps we can afford to sanction marriages that are biologically useless, but my concern isn't about physics or biology. My concern is religious freedom. Perez Hilton and others in the elite niches of our society clearly demonstrate that those who demand tolerance from the majority of Americans are the least tolerant of all when it comes to dealing with some pretty, young woman's inconvenient, neolithic religious convictions.

Somebody losing a beauty pageant due to the vindictiveness of some catty judge isn't a world-shaking event to me, but it is an indication of what will happen more generally when gay marriage becomes the law of the land. It is a very short walk from, "I'm sorry, you're not a winner," to, "I'm sorry, but we're an inclusive workplace and your beliefs, while I believe they are honestly held, are not compatible with our company." Will the constitutional protection of religious expression be interpreted to cover disapproval of gay marriage or homosexuality in general, or will the courts see it in the same light as racism and consider such belief unprotected? I don't know the answer and much depends on the ideological makeup of the courts at the time. Until I know that my religious beliefs on the subject will remain protected, I will await gay marriage with grave concern.