Miss New Mexico backs out of gay awards show appearance

March 05, 2011

controversy tonight over miss new mexico pulling out of appearance at an awards show hosted by the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community. cristina rodda joins us now to explain. the outstanding awards show will be held a week from today-- miss new mexico madison tabet was invited to perform. what happened since that invitation is in dispute-- but one thing is for sure-- tabet will not be performing at it. jesse lopez is the president of albuquerque pride-- the group putting on the awards show at the hyatt hotel next friday. lopez says a local albuquerque representative to the statewide miss new mexico called him on behalf of miss new mexico madison tabet. 01:32:27--01:32:39 "the conversation like i said was pretty heartbreaking when she said miss new mexico doesn't believe in glbt rights. so it was an emotional day for me yesterday." we contacted carol henry-- the statwide reprsentative for miss new mexico-- about the allegations and to ask if tabet supports gay rights. she told me that's a personal question she wasn't willing to answer. s.ms new mexico.jesse part2 01:33:52---01:34:03 "at the end of the day my goal is not to bash ms new mexico but to educate her and to really say come out an dmeet us, get to know us before you have a representative of your organization give me a call.." we told lopez that henry said the person he spoke to had no authority to answer about tabet's beleifs. 01:35:26-- 01:35:29 "it was a shocker to me, i feel there is a bit of back peddling." lopez says tabet agreed to the performance through facebook he showed us the exchange and that there were phone calls and e-mails too. in the end he was forced to pull her picture from the award show advertisements. we asked henry about this and she says miss new mexico couldn't book her own events-- and tabet had already committed to another event on the same night. s.ms new mexico.jesse part 2 01:34:14-- 01:34:21 "the show always goes on regardless of what happens in our community we are a family and the show will go on." lopez says miss new mexico 2009 nicole miner will take part in the awards show. henry told us the miss new mexico pagents supports the rights of all people.