ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. (AP) -- For decades, Miss America represented the crown-wearing icon of beauty, poise, moral rectitude and girl-next-door innocence.
That may be changing: The world's most famous beauty pageant is greeting the new millennium by lifting its ban on women who have been married or had abortions.And traditionalists aren't happy about it.
"I was shocked when I heard it," said Miss America 1993 Leanza Cornett. "I was like 'What?' Out of all of the things I could have expected, that is one I wouldn't think of in a million years."
Allowing contestants with divorces and abortions in their pasts will strip a time-honored gleam of virtue from their rhinestone tiaras, Miss Cornett said Monday.
"There are still little girls out there who have who held Miss America and others like her up on a pedestal," she said. "When you're sitting around the dinner table with your daughter or your little niece, it'll bring up so many questions. I'm shocked."
For almost 50 years, contestants had signed a pledge vowing they've never been married or pregnant -- a rule enacted after Miss America 1949, Jacque Mercer, was married and divorced during her reign.
The new rules would require simply that they sign a document saying "I am unmarried," and "I am not pregnant, and I am not the natural or adoptive parent of any child." It wasn't clear Tuesday whether the change would allow a woman who had given a child given up for adoption would be eligible. The pageant is open to contestants age 17 through 24.
The changes were approved last month by the Miss America Organization in order to bring the pageant in line with New Jersey's discrimination laws, according to court documents.
The old eligibility rules have never been challenged in court or otherwise, according to Leonard Horn, a lawyer who served as general counsel from 1967 to 1987 and CEO from 1987 to 1998.
The new policy was deemed to be "reasonably necessary" by the Miss America Organization board, according to pageant CEO Robert Beck. "These changes reflected MAO's conclusion that applicable laws prohibited the continuation of these requirements at the national level."
In an affidavit, Beck said state pageants would remain free to keep their eligibility rules the same, despite the change in the governing body.
However, a state organization that refused to go along might risk losing its franchise because the national organization determines who gets to run the official state pageants.
The new state pageant contracts -- which Beck distributed to state directors in August notifying them of the change -- were met with some alarm.
"Miss America has a long history of high moral standards and traditions, and I'm opposed to anything that changes that," said Libby Taylor, executive director of the Miss Kentucky Pageant and president of the National Association of Miss America State Pageants.
The state pageants went to court to fight the change, and the Miss America Organization agreed to back off for this year's pageant, scheduled for Saturday at Convention Hall.
But the board has approved the change to take effect next year.
As the wrangling continues, some current contestants said they are displeased with a seemingly common touch being added to a contest that celebrates the feminine ideal -- even in an age where one in two marriages fail, and abortion is controversial yet commonplace.
"The most important thing Miss America does is she's a role model," said Lucy Ours, the reigning Miss West Virginia. "If she's been married and divorced by age 24, people might not look at her as a very good role model."
Miss Delaware, Kama Boland, agreed.
"The word 'Miss' stands for something," she said. "It would be a shame if they allow it. It would change the image of Miss America, and not necessarily for the better."
Horn, who left last year as pageant CEO after 30 years, said relaxed rules will lead to some states quitting the Miss America system, which makes more than $30 million in scholarship aid annually.
"It's acceptable in today's society, but no one could argue that an unwanted pregnancy or an abortion is an ideal," Horn said. "A failed marriage is not an ideal. It's acceptable and it happens, but it's not an ideal."