When Beauty & Brains Meet

Beauty pageants should be an anachronism in 2009. These are young women who have yet to complete their education and professional training or to fully define themselves as human beings, yet they're being "judged" for their, um, talents. Miss City of Orange is a 19-year-old at Chapman University. Miss Huntington Beach is 18 but still in high school, and Miss San Bernardino is a 17-year-old high schooler, which sends a funny mixed message to middle-aged men ogling the TV set.

Such contests are all about the human quest for beauty, and yet we've never been able to take that at face value, so we ask them silly questions and nod, "uh-huh," as if to pretend we're interested in her personality, and then occasionally get offended. The Carrie Prejean saga shows that we're puzzled, just stumped, by gender and orientation roles in our day. As smart as we are, our scientists, humanists, theologians, philosophers and laity have no slightest consensus on how to view gender, marriage or any aspect of human behavior. That should make us all a little humble, shouldn't it?