Well, well, well, isn't this interesting. The National Organization for Marriage is bristling at Perez Hilton's request for YouTube to remove a NOM ad (above) which features footage of Hilton calling Miss California Carrie Prejean a "dumb bitch." Hilton claimed that NOM had violated copyright laws by lifting "about three seconds of footage" from his video blog. NOM's lawyers have appealed the video's removal to the video sharing site.

It's no surprise that NOM would fight to keep the video up—Perez Hilton is probably wrong here, as the clip is short enough to constitute fair use. The interesting part is the way NOM executive director Brian Brown has characterized Hilton's request.

It seems like only yesterday that NOM was working exhaustively to remove YouTube copies of the leaked audition reels to its now-infamous anti-gay "Gathering Storm" ad. And yet, In an interview with Bloggasm, Brown painted Hilton not just as a copyright law novice, but as a coward.

"I don’t know people’s motivations, but it seems pretty clear that Perez is embarassed about the fact of what he said," Brown said. "There’s no other reason of why he would try to take it down. . . . it doesn’t look good for him. So clearly it’s not that hard to figure out. He doesn’t want it up because he’s embarrassed by it."

Really, Brian Brown? There's no other reason? Let me throw another possibility out there: Perez Hilton is gay, you run an organization that works against gay people, and he doesn't want his image used in your anti-gay advertisements. I'd even venture to say that he probably knows that he's not going to win any copyright action, and wants to do whatever he can to be a huge pain in your ass, because anytime anyone takes action against NOM for anything they're guaranteed to make headlines.

Perhaps the reason Brian Brown thinks Hilton is ashamed of calling Prejean a "dumb bitch"—has Hilton ever been ashamed of anything?—is because the theory works so nicely with Brown's own YouTube take-down campaign. Did the National Organization for Marriage ask YouTube to take down its leaked audition videos because it wasn't "fair" for other people to use their material—they were totally going to use those hilarious videos of actors stumbling over their homophobia? Or was it because the tapes made them look completely and awesomely ridiculous—in short, they were "ashamed." I'd say the answer is "not that hard to figure out."

Yesterday, Keith Olbermann and Michael Musto took five minutes out of their busy schedules to skewer anti-gay-marriage Miss California Carrie Prejean after the "news" broke that the Miss California Organization had paid for Prejean's breast implants. Olbermann and Musto choose to shame Prejean by tearing into her body—riffing on boobs as "performance enhancers," saying the Miss California Organization's comments "added saline to the wound," and comparing her breasts to basketballs.

A blogger at the Conservative XPress responded to the Olbermann segment, writing, "Anyone know of any women's rights groups defending this woman yet? Nope? Didn't think so."

I'll do it.

Why is the commentary on Prejean's anti-gay commentary so devoid of the context of the Beauty Pageant?

So, Carrie Prejean is a homophobe. Is that any surprise, seeing that she's a product of a pageant machine which proudly parades its sexism in front of television screens across America? And now, the mainstream media is shaming Prejean for her pageant-consistent beliefs because she did something that would—what—help her win a beauty pageant?

The Miss California Organization leaking the news of Prejean's boob job is not sweet revenge for her intolerant comments. The organization paying for her fake breasts only reiterates the fact that pageant organizers deal in and profit from sexism, not public service. Meanwhile, they act completely sanctimonious when one of their fembot minions voices another shameful view? What a clusterfuck.

Try to think of a situation where a man is forced to parade his near-naked body in front of celebrity judges and millions of television viewers for an hour, and then speak for about ten seconds on public policy. It doesn't happen. Everyone knows those women weren't chosen for their policy positions, and that they essentially have no business commenting on political issues. And yet, the Q&A section remains. Why? To produce Youtube videos of pretty girls stumbling over "thinky" questions.

Perhaps the Prejean blowup will move pageant organizers to be more careful about coaching their representatives on the Q&A. But who cares? It's still a fucking beauty pageant.

She’s not a dumb bitch because she’s a bigot. She’s a dumb bitch because her only reason to support her bigotry was that she was raised in the United States. SO WAS EVERYBODY IN THE COMPETITION YOU DUMB BITCH.

I understand how a smaller state like North Dakota might have to make a compromise between hotness/intelligence/willingness and ignore the middle category. California has plenty of women that meet all three criteria at once. How did we end up with this loon?

Last night, NBC aired the 2009 "Miss USA" pageant, and apparently about a minute of the telecast was actually kind of interesting. Among the pageant's barely-recognizable celebrity judges was gossip blogger Perez Hilton, who managed to emerge from the pageant's cloud of spray tan and tacky gowns to ask Miss California Carrie Prejean a real question (above): What are her thoughts on gay marriage?

Here's what Prejean had to say:

"Well, I think it's great that Americans are able to choose one or the other. Um, we live in a land that you can choose same-sex marriage or opposite marriage and, you know what, in my country and my family, I think that—I believe that a marriage should be between a man and a woman. No offense to anyone out there, but that's how I was raised, and that's how I think it should be—between a man and a woman. Thank you."

The answer was met with cheers and boos. Hilton responded instantly with his bitch face, but waited to crawl back into the safety of his gossip blog empire to call Prejean a "dumb bitch" and declare her response "the worst answer in pageant history"—putting it below Miss Teen USA South Carolina's infamous pageant Q&A performance:

[youtube:v=qQdhMSEqhfg]

Hey, what California lacks in South Carolina's eloquence, it makes up for in bigotry.