EON

Carrie Prejean (pray-ZHAHN), former Miss California USA, filed suit yesterday in L.A. County Superior Court against former Miss USA Shanna Moakler and Keith Lewis, a state director for the Miss California USA Pageant. The lawsuit accuses Lewis and Moakler of defamation, religious discrimination, slander, and libel.

Prejean was fired from her post as Miss California USA on June 10th of this year, supposedly for missing several scheduled appearances to promote the organization. Carrie’s representatives, however, claim that the Miss California USA organization “fabricated a fraudulent list of some 50 public appearances allegedly missed by Prejean which they released to the media in order to justify her termination as Miss California USA.”

Prejean’s attorney intends to prove that she was actually fired because of her controversial answer to a question posed to her regarding gay marriage during the Miss USA competition, where she stated that she believed marriage should be between a man and a woman.

Prejean later defended her statements during an interview with James Dobson, remarking that “…I felt as though Satan was trying to tempt me by asking this question. And then God was in my head and in my heart saying, ‘Do not compromise this. You need to stand up for me and you need to share with all these people…you need to witness to them and you need to show that you’re not willing to compromise that for this title of Miss USA.’”

Lewis and Moakler’s representatives said that they do not have any public comments on the lawsuit.