Racy Pic May Cost Miss California Her Crown

(CBS/AP) CBS News has learned that Miss California USA officials are considering stripping Carrie Prejean of her title.

They say she may have violated her contract by posing semi-nude as a model, and also by working -- without the pageant's permission -- for a group opposed to same-sex marriage, reports CBS News correspondent Ben Tracy.

Prejean was runner-up in the Miss USA competition last month, and many observers feel anti-gay-marriage remarks she made during the pageant cost her that crown.

Prejean says the fallout over those remarks has made her the victim of "intimidation tactics that seek to undermine my reputation."

As for the photo, she says it was taken when she was just seventeen. Pageant officials say it may have been much more recent than that and, says Tracy, that may be enough to make her the former Miss California.

CBS News legal analyst Lisa Bloom says she's taken a close look at Prejean's employment contract with the Miss California pageant and, "They've got her cold. If they want to fire her, they can fire her."

Bloom adds that terms of the pact make clear that it doesn't even matter when the picture was taken, and that pageant officials get to decide what is and isn't an inappropriate photo of a title holder.

Prejean says the photo was posted in an attempt to belittle her Christianity. She says it was released "surreptitiously to a tabloid Web site that openly mocks me for my Christian faith."

In her statement, Prejean also says the attacks on her and others who "speak in defense of traditional marriage" are intolerant and offensive.

The photo, showing Prejean wearing only pink panties with her back turned to the camera, appeared Monday on the gossip blog theDirty.com.