The Dove Awards turned into the anti-Oscars by inviting Miss California, Carrie Prejean, to attend its ceremony Thursday night. Technically, she was there to introduce a performance by the band MercyMe, but was she really invited because the Gospel Music Assn. wished to offer its support to Miss California, who dared to voice her objection to gay marriage at the Miss USA pageant?

In February, the Oscars featured numerous moments in support of gay rights, as awards were heaped on the "Milk" gang. Sean Penn accepted the best actor trophy saying, "I think that it is a good time for those who voted for the ban against gay marriage to sit and reflect and anticipate their great shame and the shame in their grandchildren's eyes if they continue that way of support. We've got to have equal rights for everyone."

Dustin Lance Black accepted the screenplay Oscar by recalling his hope as a young man that "one day I could live my life openly as who I am and then maybe even I could fall in love and one day get married."

It's hard not to notice parallels between Prejean and another beauty pageant contestant of yore — Miss Oklahoma of 1958, Anita Bryant, who was second runner-up in the 1959 Miss America pageant — who plays a large role in "Milk." Bryant's legacy has turned out to be something she probably didn't seek early on in her career. She's chiefly remembered today as the creepy, pretty face of gay intolerance in the 1970s.

The conservative Southern Baptists had promoted Bryant as a spokesperson back then just as the conservative Dove Awards seem to be embracing Prejean today. Over time, Bryant was ditched by the Baptists because her marriage ended in divorce, and she was jilted by her commercial sponsors because of the gay hubbub. She got hit in the face with a pie at a press conference by a gay activist and, in the 1990s, she declared bankruptcy.

Miss California defends her anti-gay view by saying that she'd "rather be biblically correct than politically correct," but maybe she should read her Bible closely. Here's a quote from Timothy 2:12 that may be of interest to her: "Suffer not a woman to teach nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence." Just like legal authorities quote Biblical denunciations against homosexuality when blasting gay marriage today, many of America's lawmakers refused to grant women the right to vote before 1920 because of biblical declarations on the inferiority of women.

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