MISS AMERICA, ERIKA HAROLD
The judges of the Miss America pageant seem to have made a mistake. They awarded the crown to a conservative Christian woman who is highly intelligent and from a multiracial background to boot. Some running the pageant didn't like it when Erika Harold refused to stop promoting her abstinence message, but that did not faze her.
She also did not shy away from appearing at this year's Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), sitting at the head table during the Ronald Reagan Banquet on January 31 and addressing the conservative Clare Boothe Luce Policy Institute's luncheon for college women the next day. The Luce Institute gave the 22-year-old from Illinois its Woman of the Year Award.
"I'm so glad to receive this award because I have received a lot of criticism for standing up for my beliefs," said Harold. She talked about the discrimination and patronization facing traditional women in today's America, saying that her own mother "sacrificed her career aspirations" in order to be a homemaker. She even homeschooled Harold for a time. "I'm eternally grateful that she did that," Harold said. "She told me, 'When I brought you and your siblings into the world, I decided that the most important thing I had to do was be your mother.'"
Harold refuses to allow herself to be pigeon-holed as "black" or "African-American." "My mother is black and Indian, my father is Greek, German, and English," she said. In school, "the system wanted me to say I was black or white." Her peers ridiculed her for her beliefs, among other things, she said. "I was outspoken about my faith and my values."
In college at the University of Illinois, "in a lot of the courses I took, not only were my conservative values assaulted but also my faith," she said. "In a women's studies course that I took, the teacher drew something on the blackboard about how Christianity oppresses women. I would challenge her in class discussion. She would shake with anger. After a while, some of the other students started bringing their Bibles to class.... One day, she asked me to come to her office. She told me, 'You know, Erika, I'm going to have to ask you to stop contributing to class discussion.' I asked her why. 'We have an agenda here and you're ruining it,' she told me."
Harold said that when she delivers her abstinence message to young people, which includes discussion of drugs and alcohol as well as sexual activity, she emphasizes the positive. "I don't use scare tactics about disease and pregnancy," she said. "I mention them but I focus on the positive, on how abstinence helps you, how it helps you to achieve your goals.... This part of my platform is called 'Teenage Sexual Abstinence: Protect Yourself and Respect Yourself.'"
In an interview after the luncheon, Harold said, "I really see the pendulum swinging back in terms of young people's sexuality. It's becoming more fashionable for young people to say they are virgins. The media glamorize pre-marital sex, but young people do not do that as much as they used to. They are talking about abstinence more. Abstinence is in. They want to hear more about abstinence."
She said that so-called safe sex isn't. "Condoms are not the answer," she said. "They do not prevent the spread of disease. They are not entirely effective in preventing pregnancy, and they do not provide the positive effects that only abstinence can provide. It's certainly not true that condoms work well. Even a condom used effectively or correctly, doesn't always work."
Before winning the Miss America pageant, Harold had been accepted at Harvard Law School, which she plans to attend after her year-long reign ends. Asked how she plans to deal with the even greater pressure to compromise her beliefs that she is likely to encounter there, she replied, "I plan to keep on standing up for what I believe. I will work hard at my class work and will have to demonstrate to people that I deserve respect, and I hope that people will see that."
She told her luncheon audience about the importance of working hard at their classes in order to win the respect of liberals and to be able to talk to them intelligently. "You have to be a model student," she said, "you have to understand their point of view as well so you can debate it."
After law school, Harold plans to enter politics. She was youth coordinator for the gubernatorial campaign of Illinois State Sen. Patrick O'Malley, who lost in the GOP primary last cycle. "My ultimate aspiration is to run for the presidency," she told HUMAN EVENTS.
Harold may be written c/o the Miss America Organization, Two Miss America Way, Suite 1000, Atlantic City, N.J. 08401 (609-345-7571; fax: 609-347-6079; e-mail: [email protected]; website: www.missamerica.org).
