I have released two statements on Carrie to the press, none of which has received much coverage. I will be filing a column later today.
Statement One, made at the request of Team Carrie on the day of her book release:
When I was 22 years old, Carrie’s age, I had a child out of wedlock.
When I rushed to defend Carrie I didn’t know anything at all about her, except she was a 21 year old California beauty queen who answered a question truthfully: “No offense to anybody out there. But that’s how I was raised, and that’s how I believe that [marriage] should be – between a man and a woman.”
You shouldn’t have to be a perfect person to stand up in public and say, to make a marriage you need a husband and wife. Nobody should be made to feel afraid because they say or believe that.
The ongoing campaign of hatred directed at Carrie is inexplicable, and ugly. Leave her alone. Let her be. Stop this madness. Let her be a model, or a write a book, or be on TV, or help the Special Olympics, or teach disabled kids, or anything else she wants to do.
If the people going after Carrie want to shame, smear and personally destroy someone who openly says marriage is a man and a woman, I say: pick on someone your own size. How about the President of the United States? He’s the leader of the Free World. He can take it.
This is not just about Carrie. Thousands of ordinary decent, honorable, law-abiding Americans have been harassed, intimidated, and threatened because they peacefully participated in the democratic process on behalf of marriage. They don’t have PR teams, or book deals, they are not famous or glamorous. Carrie is standing up for every single one of them in standing tall.
I wish Carrie well in whatever she chooses to do moving forward.
My statement to Lifesite News on Nov. 17, 2009, in response to their questions:
Carrie has never worked for the National Organization for Marriage. Out of the goodness of her heart, when we cut an ad “No Offense” featuring the vicious attacks on Carrie — and by extension every California voter who supported Prop 8 — she agreed to appear at our press conference to call attention to our message. I remain grateful to her for that.
I have no personal knowledge of the allegations. Carrie has told the media she participated in some instances of ’sexting” to her then-boyfriend. I cannot believe that reputable media are featuring said boyfriends as they anonymously dump intimate details about Carrie.
Admittedly, I am getting kind of old. But in my old-fashioned view boyfriends who release such information on ex-girlfriends are scummy. I don’t understand the newsworthiness of these allegations.
Seven million Californians voted for Prop 8. I have no doubt that quite a few of them are people who committed sexual sins of various kinds. Why is this one 22 year old girl carrying the whole weight of that on her young shoulders?
The whole episode is weird, sad and ugly. No-one should face this kind of invasion of their privacy simply because they believe marriage is the union of husband and wife. Period. I hope the people gleeful about this attack are enjoying their phyrric victory. What they have done says far more about them than about Carrie, who is a not-unusual California 22 year old.