Miss MAGA Pageant Being Organized By Louisiana Couple, Who Hope To ‘Give A Voice To More Conservative Women’

A Louisiana couple is organizing a “Miss MAGA” pageant because they believe that conservative women are being silenced, particularly in the beauty pageant industry, Yahoo Lifestyle reports. Specifically, at least two women have been kicked out of beauty pageants supposedly because they’re conservative.

John and Jessica Carlson say they were inspired to create the pageant after hearing the story of Kathy Zhu. Back in July, as reported at the time by The Inquisitr, Zhu, a University of Michigan student, was stripped of her title of Miss Michigan and denied the opportunity to compete in the Miss World pageant after her social media history came to light. In a 2018 tweet, for example, Zhu suggested that a “try a hijab booth” by the Muslim Student Association at the University of Florida was an attempt to get women used to being oppressed under Islam. In another tweet, she wrote that “the majority of black deaths are caused by other blacks.”

While the pageant’s management insisted that Zhu had violated the rules by posting “offensive” social media posts, Zhu claimed that she was silenced for being a conservative woman.

Another beauty pageant contestant, Miss Nevada Katie Williams, similarly claims that she was stripped of her title for being conservative.

The Carlsons say that, in addition to “silencing” the voices of conservative competitors, the pageant’s authorities’ actions stifle the women’s charitable and philanthropic work. To that end, they’re creating their own pageant, Miss MAGA, to give conservative women a voice.

“Both of us have really been interested in philanthropical work, like donating to charities, and we figured this would be a good way for us to contribute and donate to charities and to give a voice to more conservative women across the country,” said John Carlson.

Zhu and Williams, as well as author Rob Smith, have been brought on as judges. The couple say they’re also hoping to bring on a couple of judges with a liberal viewpoint to balance things out, but so far they say they’ve had a hard time getting any interest.

So far, the Miss MAGA pageant appears to exist only on paper (or more accurately, as pixels on a screen). The event has a Facebook page, which as of this writing has 71 followers. It also has an Instagram account, which as of this writing has 525 followers.

The Carlsons have also started a GoFundMe account to raise between $50,000-75,000 to cover the cost of the pageant. As of this writing, the account has raised $615.