Prejean thanked "the thousands of Americans who have sent letters, sent emails, messages...I cannot count the number of fan mail I have received in the past three weeks of people expressing their support to me," she said. "They have confided in me that they have found hope and inspiration in my story.

"Most importantly, I would like to thank God for trusting me with this large task and giving me the strength to stand by my beliefs."

Prejean pointed out that "Being at the center of a media firestorm is not something I had planned or signed up for. Let me be clear, I am not an activist, nor do I have a personal agenda. I was thrown into this firestorm from the time I was asked the question on stage...The president of the United States, the secretary of state, and many Americans agree with me," she said.

She also said that while she has "become an advocate of not redefining marriage," she will not be working for an particular organization. She maintained that she is "not working for the National Organization for Marriage," and that she "was not going to be speaking out against same-sex marriage."  

Ross to the rescue  

In late April, U.S. News & World Report's Dan Gilgoff reported that Prejean had hired the Carrollton, Texas-based A Larry Ross Communications, "one of the country's premier Christian PR firms." What at first must have seemed like a public relations firm's equivalent of a walk in the park - handle the media requests, manage the message, harness the opportunities - turned into a full blown image recovery action.

Over the years, Ross' public relations company has represented a host of top-shelf clients Christian conservatives, including the Rev. Billy Graham, Pastor Rick Warren of Lake Forest, California's Saddleback Church, Texas's African American mega-church Pastor T.D. Jakes, and the controversial Pastor Rod Parsley, the head of Ohio's Center for Moral Clarity.

Ross' firm has worked with the Promise Keepers, the once powerful international men's ministry that is currently immersed in another round of re-organization, such projects as the selling of the "Left Behind" film based on the popular series of apocalyptic novels of the same name by veteran religious right activist Tim LaHaye and JKerry Jenkins, "The Prince of Egypt," and actor/director Mel Gibson's blockbuster, "The Passion of the Christ."

At its website (http://www.alarryross.com/homepage.aspx) ALRC states that it primarily works with:

Organizations with a Christian foundation that seek to expand or clarify their message to the Christian or mainstream communities  

Mainstream organizations that want or need to communicate vital messages to the Christian community  

In April 2006, Ross told the New York Times Magazine that "Moses stood there on top of a cliff, and as long as he held up his arms, the children of Israel won. Well, after a while he got tired, so there were two men that came and held up Moses' arms so they could win the battle. That's my job--to hold up the arms of the man of God, like Billy Graham or Rick Warren, in the media."

And now, Ms Prejean has joined that illustrious group.

In 1981, Ross began working with Billy Graham, becoming a pioneer in the new world of Christian P.R., when he founded A Larry Ross Communications thirteen years later.  According to its website, the company "is a full-service media and public relations agency [aimed at] ... `restor[ing] faith in media,' provid[ing] `value-added P.R. that defines values' and giv[ing] Christian messages relevance and meaning in mainstream media."

The website also pointed out that it "continue[s] to provide all domestic and international media support for evangelist Billy Graham ... . [and] has also provided consultation and ongoing representation for many of the world's most influential Christian leaders, churches, ministries and media.

"In recent years, this has expanded to specialized expertise in the `Faith and Family' film genre, helping some of Hollywood's biggest studios as well as Christian entertainment companies market theatrical and video-release films and television projects that tell good stories with a purpose."

A few years back, when a tape of anti-Semitic remarks that Graham had made to then President Richard Nixon became public, Ross helped Graham skate through that crisis. He also made sure that Graham's name was never associated with the televangelist scandals of the 1980s involving Jim Bakker and his wife Tammie Faye, the Reverend Jimmy Swaggart, and a host of other lesser-known preachers.

Ross Communications has also worked very closely with Pastor Rick Warren. On January 19, Ross wrote an op-ed column for the Huffington Post, commenting on then President-elect Obama's invitation to Warren to give the Invocation at the Swearing-in Ceremony at his Inauguration.  According to Ross, Warren "represents a new brand of Evangelicals who apply the timeless message of the Gospel in a timely way. Who can argue with his tireless international efforts to take on the five global giants of pandemic disease, extreme poverty, illiteracy, self-centered leadership and spiritual emptiness?"

Ross criticized Warren's attackers from both the left and the right, and maintained that he "believes in the separation of church and state, but doesn't believe that we can separate religion from politics, because one's faith determines one's worldview."    

These days in addition to working with Prejean, Billy Graham and Warren, including the pastor's collaboration with The Reader's Digest Association, Ross Communications recently issued a press release on behalf of Brian "Head" Welch, the former lead guitarist for the Grammy Award-winning, controversial rock band Korn, who will be performing with his new band on May 19 at The Door in Deep Ellum "in a concert sponsored by Dallas-based I am Second, a multimedia campaign that features Welch's gripping transformation from junkie rockstar to devoted Christian, father and musician."