Last night, the fate of the free world rested on the spray-tanned shoulders of pageant queens from all over this great country of ours. In turn, their fates rested in the hands of a few people calling themselves judges -- cruel, unforgiving judges who evaluated them on the elegance of their gait, how pretty they looked in bikinis (0 for "fugz" and 10 for "totez"), whether they could read'n'write real good, and other measures of integrity upon which American democracy was founded a few million years ago. So cut to Carrie Prejean -- a.k.a. Miss California -- fielding a question from Perez Hilton, one of the cruel, unforgiving few. Hilton asked Miss California how she would like it if gays, being as sneaky as they are with their macrame, love for antiques, and rigging the Oscars to give a Best Acting prize to the first woman to portray Édith Piaf, could get married in every state in the union.

Temporarily blinding us all with her Crest white-stripped teeth, she responded, "We live in a land you can choose same-sex marriage and opposite marriage. In my country, in my family, I believe a marriage should be between a man and a woman." Oh, that opposite marriage! It's yielded such success stories as Elizabeth Taylor, Mel Gibson, and Chad Michael Murray. Fox News asked if her answer cost her the crown, to which one savvy commenter responded, "I'd rather lose here and win in heaven." Heartwarming! Rest assured, Perez Hilton high-tailed back to whatever bunker he calls home and promptly blogged about what a dumb bitch Miss Cali was, but later retracted the sentiment and instead issued a standing coffee date with the Miss America non-winner. After all, if insipid queens of the same tiara can't make it work, what chance do the rest of us have of ever emerging from this recession, sense of self intact?