Source: Carrie Prejean ’sex tape’ spurred pageant settlementBy Alan Duke, CNN
November 4, 2009 10:15 p.m. EST

Los Angeles, California (CNN) — The sudden end to a legal battle between dethroned Miss California USA Carrie Prejean and pageant officials was prompted by the revelation of a “sex tape,” according to a source familiar with the lawsuits’ settlement.

Prejean was fired in June after lingerie-modeling photos of her emerged that pageant officials said were a breach of her contract. Prejean sued the pageant in August, arguing her firing was religious discrimination because of her opposition to same-sex marriage.

Pageant officials countersued last month, demanding their former beauty queen repay $5,200 in pageant money spent for her breast implants and give them all proceeds from a book she’s written.

A settlement of both lawsuits was signed in New York Tuesday, but no details were made public. Lawyers and parties for each side were bound by a confidentiality pledge, according to the source.

The veil of secrecy was partially lifted Wednesday after celebrity gossip Web site TMZ reported the deal was sealed after pageant lawyers presented an “extremely graphic” home video involving Prejean.

TMZ Managing Editor Harvey Levin said during a webcast Wednesday that he obtained the Prejean video during the summer, but found it “too racy” to post on his site. He indicated Prejean was alone in the video.

The source with knowledge of the settlement talks told CNN those details were accurate.

Prejean’s lawyer, Charles LiMandri, responded with a short statement issued through an employee at his law office. “It’s a confidential settlement, and he can’t discuss it,” the statement said.

I’m afraid, Dustin, like them, I’m skeptical of your claims that hate crimes legislation is a chipping away of civil liberties that will result in state-monitored sermons. You mentioned examples from “other countries” – what examples? And I’m not sure you’ve refuted Naomi’s well-structured argument about the necessity of treating hate crimes differently than other crimes. Could you address her argument specifically?

Dustin,

What are some issues where you differ with Focus on the Family or the Family Research Council?

Instead of just going off the top of your head, please do a little research and tell me if the hate crime laws in place for at least 15 years in this country have led to free speech restrictions. Why do you persist in using a term such as “hate speech legislation”? Was that a slip or do you still not understand that hate crime legislation deals with actual violent crimes, not speech.

How has the “gay lobby” regulated free speech in this country?

You refer to the “terrorizing being done to Ms. Prejean.” How do you define “terrorizing”? Has she been the victim of hate crimes? Do you mean that when others use their free speech rights to speak against her, they become terrorists? Now who is saying that hate speech equals violence? Is the terrorism the fact that Perez Hilton called her a b— on his blog, for which he shortly thereafter apologized?

Regarding the ACLU. I realize that the religious right loves to hate the ACLU and accuse it of “aggressively seeking to purge our Christian heritage from everything from our daily American lives.” This is simply not true. The ACLU does oppose promotion of religious views by the government, but this is how our country operates and it is actually good for religion.

The ACLU aggressively seeks to protect the right of Americans to express their religious views as private citizens or private organizations.

Some examples – note that many of these deal with people speaking against gay rights and against abortion – you can find more at the ACLU website under religious freedom:

Dec. 3, 2008 – “The American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU of New Jersey today filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of a New Jersey prisoner, an ordained Pentecostal minister, who is asking the state to respect his religious freedom by restoring his right to preach.

The ACLU of Southern California (2008) filed suit on behalf of members of a faith-based charity organization after park rangers threatened to arrest the members for serving hot meals and distributing Bibles to the homeless on Doheny State Beach.

The ACLU of Louisiana (2008) filed a brief before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit supporting an individual’s right to quote Bible verses on public streets in Zachary, Louisiana.

The ACLU of Florida (2007) argued in favor of the right of Christians to protest against a gay pride event held in the City of St. Petersburg. The City had proposed limiting opposition speech, including speech motivated by religious beliefs, to restricted “free speech zones.” After receiving the ACLU’s letter, the City revised its proposed ordinance.

The ACLU of Oregon (2007) defended the right of students at a private religious school not to be pressured to violate their Sabbath day by playing in a state basketball tournament. The Oregon School Activities Association scheduled state tournament games on Saturdays, the recognized Sabbath of students and faculty of the Portland Adventist Academy. The ACLU argued that the school’s team, having successfully made it to the tournament, should not be required to violate their religious beliefs in order to participate.

The ACLU of West Virginia (2007) sued on behalf of a Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormon) university student who won a prestigious scholarship to West Virginia University. Although the state scholarship board provided leaves of absence for military, medical, and family reasons, it denied the ACLU’s client a leave of absence to serve on a 2-year mission for his church. The ACLU filed a religious freedom claim in federal court.

The ACLU of North Carolina (2007) challenged a North Carolina Department of Corrections policy making all religious services in prison English-only, thereby denying access to many inmates. The North Carolina Division of Prisons agreed to review the policy and the need for religious services in languages other than English in the state correctional system.

The ACLU of Wisconsin (2007) filed a friend-of-the-court brief arguing that individual pharmacists should be able to refuse to fill prescriptions that violate their religious scruples, provided that patients can obtain prescriptions from willing providers in a safe and timely manner.

The ACLU of New Jersey (2007) defended the right of an elementary school student who was prohibited from singing “Awesome God” in a voluntary, after-school talent show for which students selected their own material. The ACLU submitted a friend-of-the-court brief. After a favorable settlement was reached for the student, the federal lawsuit was dismissed.

The ACLU of Eastern Missouri (2007) represented Shirley L. Phelps-Roper, a member of the Westboro Baptist Church, whose religious beliefs led her to condemn homosexuality as a sin and insist that God is punishing the United States. The protests in which she has been involved have been confrontational and have involved funerals of soldiers killed in Iraq. While the ACLU does not endorse her message, it does believe that she has both religious and free-speech rights to express her viewpoint criticizing homosexuality.

The ACLU of Louisiana (2006) prevailed in its lawsuit defending the right of a Christian man to exercise his religious and speech rights by protesting against homosexuality in front of a Wal-Mart store with a sign that read: “Christians: Wal-Mart Supports Gay Marriage and Gay Lifestyles. Don’t Shop There.”

The ACLU of Nevada (2006) defended the free exercise and free speech rights of evangelical Christians to preach on the sidewalks of Las Vegas. When the County government refused to change its unconstitutional policy, the ACLU filed suit in federal court.
The Iowa Civil Liberties Union (2005) defended the rights of two teenage girls who, for religious reasons, sought to wear anti-abortion t-shirts to school after school officials threatened to punish them.

Regarding your point about my being a parrot, I am clearly not a parrot and I have no doubt that my thoughtfulness is well established to regular readers of this blog. You, Boonton, and others can call me a parrot again and again and again, but it won’t make your claim true. I think for myself, but I’m not the sort of foolish person that thinks I must re-invent the wheel on every issue. I read experts like the lawyers at the ADF, I observe culture, read the news, synthesize and make sense of information, and will refer you and others to people whom I think speak the truth most plainly and carefully.

To answer you question about specific instances where speech has been regulated per “hate crime laws,” no I am not aware of places where speech has yet been regulated by such a law. That does not mean that such instances do not exist, it simply means that I cannot recall one off the top of my head. I am aware of instances where “hate crimes” were used to condemn “right wing religious groups” such as Focus on the Family when, in reality, those groups WERE NOT guilty of inciting any sort of hate crime. Those details are in the ADF document which I already linked to. To be frank, I think your and Naomi’s view of the purpose of these latest rounds of hate speech legislation leaves out important precedence from other countries worth considering. The precedence to which I am referring can be found well documented in multiple sources, but again, the ADF document should suffice to show you where I am coming from with my opinion.

The fact of the matter is that I don’t trust the First Amendment to save me. Why? Because I trust less and less those individuals entrusted to uphold and defend the Constitution. I don’t trust the court systems which, in the state of California, choose to create ex-nihilo “gay marriage” and considered overthrowing a perfectly legal and constitutional vote rejecting the newly discovered “right.” I don’t trust our leaders in Congress to stand up for a pastor’s right to preach the scriptures when, at the same time, they aggressively fight to deny the even more fundamental right to life for hundreds of thousands of citizens every year. I certainly don’t trust lawyers and powerful organizations like the ACLU to step in and defend a Church’s right to preach the gospel when they are so aggressively seeking to purge our Christian heritage from everything from our daily American lives.

Naomi,

We have to agree to disagree. The strategy by which the gay lobby worldwide has brought regulation to free speech is well documented. I linked to ONE DOCUMENT OF MANY that traces the precedent. That you continue to make such sweeping claims of dismissal demonstrates to me that you and Ex are either in denial, ignorant, or unwilling to entertain arguments from precedence. Regardless, I will not respond again to anyone who flatly denies, without substantive refutation, the very real strategy being played by the gay lobby.

Terrorizing innocent PEOPLE is wrong. That is one reason I bothered to write the original post in the first place, to remark on the terrorizing being done to Ms. Prejean.

“Identity-motivated violent crimes are deliberate violent acts against all members of that identity, committed to incite fear community-wide.”

This Evangelical-Anglican sends kudos to you for your insightful parsing of the situation. Well done and well argued.

Dustin,

Having been around the block with free speech, hate speech, and hate crime issues for a number of years (mostly in academic settings as a Human Rights major), I will go on record as arguing that protected classes of people are necessary where hate crime legislation is concerned, both in principle and to redress years of shoddy and often wicked implementation. Hate crime comprises more than simple person-to-person violence; to target someone based solely on ethnic identity, say, serves the purpose of committing a terrorist act against the whole of that ethnicity. Identity-motivated violent crimes are deliberate speech acts that tell all members they do not deserve to live. They deserve a separate classification by virtue of their nature AND to prevent institutional noncompliance or leniency in particular courts or regions (e.g., Alabama in the 1960s). The four men who plotted to blow up synagogues in New York this week deserve to be recognized as terrorists, and we should have no patience with governmental institutions that treat them otherwise.

Hate speech is a separate (though not unrelated) and more difficult issue, surely. It is mired in a very conflicted attitude towards free speech in this country and will be squabbled about for years to come (decades, probably). To view hate crime prohibitions as a foothold for the “gay agenda,” however, is simply not accurate or appropriate. Terrorizing the gay community is always wrong, and protective legislation is consistent with justice on this issue. We’ll have plenty of time to haggle over the rest of it in court and at home.

I did not intend to demean you, but I honestly do wonder if you are thinking through your positions or merely repeating the party line that you have picked up from religious rightwing websites.

I am content to have anyone read our exchange and determine whose position is best supported by the facts and most in line with the principles of freedom.

I noticed that you did not answer my question about whether you know of any cases where the 1994 Hate Crime Law or the hate crime laws in 45 states (32 of which cover sexual orientation) have resulted in infringements on anyone’s right to free speech. If such a situation were ever to arise, I am confident that the First Amendment’s guarantee of the freedoms of speech, press and religion would trump the Hate Crime Law.