The new direction of the Miss America Pageant has potential, including the potential to become even more irrelevant.

In recent years the Miss America Pageant has lost much of its luster. Controversies, loss of viewership, and organizational turmoil have made it somewhat irrelevant in our culture. All that could change with the new direction being led by newly appointed Chairwoman Gretchen Carlson.

It could also go very badly.

Carlson recently said that the new direction the Miss America pageant will go will be about the ideas the contestants share. She said:

“We’re no longer judging women when they come out in their chosen attire, their evening wear, whatever they choose to do. It’s going to be what comes out of their mouth that we’re interested in, when they talk about their social impact initiatives.”

This sounds like a great improvement. This sounds like something the feminist movement and social justice warriors can easily get behind. And in the age of #metoo, this sounds like a perfect alternative to a culture that demeans women through prostitution and pornography. What’s to worry about?

The cause for concern comes in what ideas are shared and, more importantly, what ideas are discouraged.

Back in 2009, Miss California, Carrie Prejean, was asked about her views on marriage by judge and LGBT activist Perez Hilton. Prejean responded by saying she believes marriage is intended for a man and a woman:

“I think it’s great that Americans are able to choose one or the other. We live in a land where you can choose same-sex marriage or opposite marriage. And you know what? I think in my country, in my family, I think that I believe that a marriage should be between a man and a woman. No offence [sic] to anybody out there, but that’s how I was raised.”

Prejean spent a lot of time defending her comments after the pageant. She lost to Miss North Carolina and many indicated that it was because of those comments on marriage.

That was 2009, before our culture was so polarized by social and political viewpoints, before tolerance was thrown out the window. Before social justice warriors armed with social media apps happily dismantled the life of anyone that dared to utter a word against them. What if a contestant in the pageant made similar comments today?

As we’ve seen many times over in the public arena, dissenting views on issues of sexuality, gender, and marriage are not tolerated. You can be a private citizen with no voice and believe what you want. But if you intend to be a public figure with a platform and a voice, you must conform to the tenets of the sexual revolution or you will be publicly attacked until you either apologize, or recant.

One recent example of just how out of control things have gotten came when Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey committed the unpardonable sin of eating at Chik-Fil-A then telling social media. He was immediately hammered for daring to eat at a place that also believes marriage is between one man and one woman. Great chicken sandwiches be damned.

So what will happen when Miss Alabama, Miss Indiana, or Miss West Virginia shares her “social impact initiative” that helps place foster kids with two-parent homes? And how will judges and social media respond when Miss Arkansas or Miss South Carolina shares her initiative to protect the unborn? Are these ideas that Miss America will not just allow but support from their contestants?

Will Miss America set an example of what freedom of speech and diversity of thought looks like in a civilized and tolerant society? How will judges score the contestants if scoring is based on “what comes out of their mouth”? From a distance it appears that judging will be based on whether each individual judge actually agrees with what comes out of the contestants mouth. That poses a serious problem.

Since the competition is funded by the support of donors and advertisers, what is likely to happen is the suppression of certain un-politically correct ideas via threatening to pull funding. Rather than support the contestants in their initiatives and truly empower women, we will be left with yet another shill for a liberal political agenda.

I hope I’m wrong. If Miss America can pull off becoming a place where true tolerance and the free flow of ideas exists, it will be a modern day miracle. It will show a watching world that people with divergent ideas can co-exist peacefully while disagreeing with each other. Sounds almost like a fairytale.

Maybe it’s your little girls fairytale.