Miss USA Contestants On Evolution

Maggie Gallagher: I Still Love Ladyfingers

NOM usually deletes my comments from their blog, but Maggie Gallagher yesterday responded to my comment on their post congratulating Miss Ladyfingers USA on the birth of her baby. Gallagher may claim to have "never backed away" from Ladyfingers, but those of us who monitored their website daily at the time noted the complete scrubbing of all previous mentions of Prejean.

Claire Buffie For New York Marriage

NOM To Sue Over Ladyfingers?

When Carrie "Ladyfingers" Prejean was busted for homemade porn videos in which she explored her tingly no-no parts, NOM burned rubber in distancing themselves from their former hero. However Michael Musto today reports an interesting development.

Well, outside Sister Act last night, a guy approached me and said, "Hi, Michael, I'm Keith Lewis from the Miss California USA pageant." "Oh, you're the one who ripped the crown off Carrie," I noted, grinning. "Congrats!" "Well, now we're being sued by NOM," he informed me, meaning the National Organization for Marriage group that Carrie had been a spokesperson for. The suit has something to do with NOM accusing the pageant of releasing damaging (i.e. true) info about Carrie, as opposed to the press having dug it up by itself. "Huh?" I screeched. "NOM is suing you? But NOM fired Carrie too!" "Well" said Lewis, "nowadays people can do just about anything."

RELATED: More than 18 months later, "Carrie Prejean sex tape" is still among the top search terms that bring folks to JMG.

Miss Arkansas

Miss New York and her unprecedented platform of LGBT equality did not triumph at Miss America tonight. Neither did Miss Arkansas, but her talent of yodeling ventriloquism will surely be what people remember.

Miss New York To Compete For Miss America On LGBT Rights Platform

Last July, Claire Buffie was named Miss New York after competing on the platform "Straight For Equality: Let's Talk." On January 15th, Buffie will be the first-ever Miss America contestant to compete in the name of LGBT rights. Buffie is a board member of NYC P-FLAG and works at the Genius Bar of the Fifth Avenue Apple store. Do I hear the sound of pageant-watching parties being planned all over Chelsea? Count me in!

Beauty Pageants For Boys

Just as creepy as the pageants for little girls.

Pageant Queens

Over at Boy Culture, Matthew Rettenmund tips us to this really cute clip of four Filipino gay boys reacting to Miss Philippines making the top fifteen at last night's Miss Universe pageant. Tuesday morning pageantbacks are saying that it was her question response that lost her the crown.

Miss New York On LGBT Rights

We love her.

NEW YORK: Finally We Get A Beauty Queen That We Can All Love

The just-crowned Miss New York is a winner in a more ways than one.

Miss New York 2010, Claire Buffie, is an outspoken advocate of human rights, opening the dialogue about equality amongst youth, teens and adults alike with her platform "Straight for Equality: Let's Talk." The issues of gay rights make up the civil rights movement of our generation and reach far beyond marriage equality. As Miss New York 2010, Claire aims to break the stigma of marginalized youth, eliminating discriminatory vocabulary and changing the climate in New York schools. She celebrates diversity and the things that make us all unique and strives to instill pride, dignity and respect in developing minds and compassionate hearts. This will be a year of change in New York State and Claire is ready to support this incredible movement.

All Over Albany adds that Buffie is an executive board member of the NYC chapter of P-FLAG. And she works at the Genius Bar at the Fifth Avenue Apple store, where the stream of gay boys is undoubtedly nonstop. She'll be competing for Miss America 2011 in January in Las Vegas. Go Claire!

(Tipped by JMG reader Matt)

Arab Immigrant Wins Miss USA Pageant

Lebanese immigrant Rima Fakih was crowned Miss USA in Las Vegas last night, becoming what may be both the first immigrant and first Muslim to win the 60 year-old pageant.

Fakih was born into a powerful Shiite family in a village in southern Lebanon that was heavily bombed during the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war. But she and her sister said the family celebrates both Muslim and Christian faiths and prefer to be referred to as Lebanese, Arabs or Arab-Americans. She moved to the United States with her family in 1993 and attended a Catholic school in New York. Her family moved to Michigan in 2003. Her sister, Rana Faqih, who moved back to Lebanon a few months ago for a new job, said she spent the night exchanging messages with her father, Hussein, and another sister, Ruba, who were attending the competition. "It was a beautiful surprise," she told the Associated Press from the family's native village of Srifa in southern Lebanon. "It was not easy for Rima to reach this title."

Predictably, wingnuts and teabaggers are claiming that the contest was rigged. (Probably by our Kenyan president.) Noted loon Debbie Shlussel is already screaming that Fakih is a supporter of Hezbollah. First Carrie Prejean, now this. Beauty pageants used to be so boring!

Broadway Friday

PHOTO: Broadway Beauty Pageant winner Charlie Williams of Memphis accepts his tiara as verklempt past winners Marty Thomas and Frankie Grande look on. The Ali Forney Center fundraiser played to a packed house at Symphony Space on Monday with celebrity judges Charles Busch, Tony winner Christine Ebersole, and Michael Musto providing Idol-esque commentary. The evening was hosted by four-time Tony nominee Tovah Feldshuh. JMG staff photographer Dr. Jeff provides a fantastic slideshow at the bottom of this post, which may be slightly NSFW due to the swimsuit portion of the contest.

-Idina Menzel, Kristen Chenoweth, and Neil Patrick Harris have supplied tracks to Glee: The Music, Volume 3 Showstoppers, which will be released on May 18th.

-Alan Cumming has dropped out of the forever delayed Spider-Man: The Musical due to a scheduling conflict. The show was supposed to open in February, no firm date has yet been announced.

-Go to Broadway World for this week's rush, lottery, and standing room discounted tickets.

-David Hyde Pierce will receive the Isabelle Stevenson Award at this year's Tonys for his charity work on behalf of Alzheimer's Disease.

-Law & Order's Chris Noth will star in the 2011 revival of Born Yesterday. The play first opened in 1946, with Madeline Kahn starring in the 1989 revival.

-Tony winner (and beyond fabulous) Beth Leavel will perform with a cast of stars on May 17th at Broadway Unleashed, a benefit for Sean Casey Animal Rescue. Bernadette Peters and Chita Rivera are scheduled to speak.

SLIDESHOW: Broadway Beauty Pageant 2010. Possibly NSFW.