Carrie Prejean, the beauty queen who lost out on the Miss USA title because she disagrees with gay marriage, has been stripped of her Miss California crown.
Miss California pageant officials say she was released from her contract yesterday for not fulfilling her obligations.
However Carrie Prejean insists that her removal was political and predictable given her stance on marriage.
Miss Prejean said: “They don’t agree with the stance that I took. They don’t like me. From day one they wanted me out and they got what they wanted.”
During the Miss USA competition in April Miss Prejean was asked by an openly homosexual judge whether US states should allow same-sex marriage.
Miss Prejean replied: “I believe that a marriage should be between a man and a woman. No offence to anybody out there, but that’s how I was raised.”
The judge who asked the question told ABC News: “She lost it because of that question. She was definitely the front-runner before that.”
Miss Prejean has since joined the National Organisation for Marriage, which seeks to protect the definition of marriage as being between one man and one woman.
A week after the contest, British Conservative Party frontbencher Alan Duncan joked about killing Miss Prejean because of her views, while appearing as a panelist on the BBC’s satirical news quiz Have I Got News For You.
Mr Duncan, who became the first Conservative MP to form a same-sex civil partnership said: “If you read that Miss California has been murdered, you will know it was me, won’t you?”
In response Ian Hislop, editor of Private Eye magazine and fellow panelist, remarked: “Nothing like freedom of speech from a Tory, eh?”
“She disproves of same-sex marriage so she deserves to die by your hand!”
Defending his comments, Mr Duncan, who could be Home Secretary if the Conservative Party win the next election, said: “I have no plans to kill her.
“I’ll send her a box of chocolates – unpoisoned.”