WASHINGTON D.C., UNITED STATES, October 9, 2002: Miss America 2003, Erika Harold, Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the University of Illinois, yesterday said pageant officials have ordered her not to talk publicly about sexual abstinence, a cause she has advocated to teenage girls in Illinois. “Quite frankly, and I’m not going to be specific, there are pressures from some sides to not promote [abstinence],” the 22-year-old woman from Urbana, Ill., told The Washington Times. In her first visit to Washington since winning the crown Sept. 21, Miss Harold resisted efforts by Miss America officials to silence her pro-chastity opinions. “I will not be bullied,” Miss Harold said yesterday at the National Press Club. The pageant has tried for years to improve the image of Miss America to include brains as well as beauty, and now that they’ve succeeded, may be having trouble handling the results. Miss Harold has for years advocated premarital chastity, an ethical code equally valued by Hindus, in Illinois. After winning the Miss America crown, Miss Harold said a young girl from an inner-city Chicago school sent her an e-mail asking her to continue the abstinence campaign. “She said, ‘You changed my life because of what you said, and now I made the decision to be abstinent…..I really hope that as Miss America you continue to share that because it changed my life and I think it can change lots of others.’ ”
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