Another un-crowned beauty queen, Carrie Prejean, Her agenda—opposing gay marriage— was not approved by her sponsors.

In his “Comment of the Day,” Alexander Cheezem expands on the various uses of beauty contest winners, adding perspective to my original post about the teen beauty queen forced to resign—unfairly, according to some—because of her starring action in a porn film. In the end, he left me pondering on an ethics quiz question I wish had never entered my mind: Should a beauty queen whose function is to promote the use of bleach enemas as a crackpot treatment for autism be disqualified because she made porn films? That sounds like the kind of query Captain James Kirk asked evil computers to make them blow up on the original “Star Trek.”

Here is Alexander’s Comment of the Day on the post, Is There A “Naked Beauty Pageant Queen” Principle?

“I am, for various reasons, not exactly an impartial commenter on this issue. While only tangentially related, my story does involve some of the issues involved (and tie into something I mentioned in another comment thread), so I may as well share it.

“Last summer, I had the… privilege, if you can call it that… of attending a four-or-five hour “conference” dedicated to glorifying something called “Miracle Mineral Solution” (“MMS”) as an autism treatment. For those of you who are uninformed, MMS is a 28% solution of sodium chlorite — a powerful industrial bleaching agent. Prior to use, parents mix this with citric acid to form chlorine dioxide (another powerful bleach, most commonly used to whiten wood pulp during the manufacture of paper). The parents then make their kids drink it, bathe in it, an take it… err… via enema.

“Yes, the “conference” was dedicated to promoting the practice of shoving an industrial bleach up the anal cavities of innocent children. Needless to say, I was not exactly happy with my experience there.

“The first “speaker” there, a Ms. Scheer, was a literal beauty queen who had won a major international beauty pageant and spoke — while wearing her sash and crown — about the glories that bleach enemas had allegedly done for her son. I found the entire experience sickening; I hope I don’t have to explain why or go into detail.

“Afterwards, I took two notable actions: being a mandated reporter, I called her home state’s department of human services… and I followed up on the pageant connection.

“The less said about DHS, the better. Suffice it to say that I am now in possession of an official letter from the state government saying, in essence, that it’s perfectly legal to give your children bleach enemas under Michigan law.

“The beauty pageant, however…They confirmed that the queen in question was in fact representing the pageant by wearing her sash and crown as she glorified shoving bleach where, frankly, it doesn’t belong. They *also* stated that they supported Ms. Scheer in doing this and that bleach enemas were a part of her platform.

“You see, beauty queens are supposed to do more than just sit there and look pretty. Part of the paper-thin veneer that separates the things from simply being shallow, self-absorbed celebrations of women’s ability to titillate a male audience is that the beauty queens are supposed to *use* their fame — and detail that during the contest. Predictably, these are usually the sort of shallow, feel-good “causes” which appeal to the vapid audiences these events attract while doing nothing to stir controversy or detract from the aforementioned titillation value.

“This cause is known as the queen’s “platform”, and part of the prize for winning is the right to use the contest’s name to promote it (and, “coincidentally,” raise the pageant’s visibility by doing so).

“Some essays from a somewhat less cynical perspective can be found at http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080125190749AA2WGEj and http://www.shellythepageantcoach.com/tag/pageant-platform . Frankly, I think that my cynicism is justified… but that’s just me. On the other hand… “Think of the chiiildren!”

“In this case, Ms. Scheer had run on the “platform” of questionable, heroic (a term whose meaning in medicine is probably not what you think) “biomedical treatments” for children with atypical neurology — explicitly including bleach enemas.

“Now, I could spend hours detailing the problems with this ethics train wreck (including a number of points that I didn’t even touch on in my exposition)… but that’s neither here nor there. The issue here is a separate case entirely. Presumably, Ms. King’s platform didn’t involve child abuse.

“Despite this, the above exposition impacts on my point anyway — as it helps illustrate that a reigning beauty queen does have (shallow, vapid) duties and responsibilities. If the porn impacted her ability to fill them… or her ability to do so with the grace and dignity (ha!) expected of someone in her position (again, I’ll be cynical and say that said position is essentially “eye-candy”)…

“But I’m hardly an objective source here… and understandably (I hope) bitter and cynical. I just keep flashing back to that… woman’s… son and the video she showed us of him. Knowing that she’s getting away with what she’s doing to him leaves me with a very bitter taste in my mouth.”

_________________________________

Graphic: Extra TV