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Anita Bryant and the Myth of the Militant Homosexual
Michael WolraichIndiana conservatives made news by claiming religious freedom laws discriminate against them, but Anita Bryant pioneered that smear decades ago.
Indiana Governor Mike Pence is shocked—shocked—that people see anything objectionable in Indiana’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act. “Was I expecting this kind of backlash?” he exclaimed, “Heavens no.”
After all, who could object to religious freedom?
Yet, there is something fishy about the Christian right’s newfound passion for spiritual liberty. For most of American history, the First Amendment has been the redoubt of religious minorities: Catholics, Jews, Mormons, atheists, and others. The 1993 federal law that Indiana lawmakers claimed to innocently reproduce was inspired by a Native American who was fired for smoking ceremonial peyote.
Mainstream Protestants, safely in the majority, have had little need for such protections, and right-wing groups have often opposed efforts by the ACLU and other civil rights organizations to defend religious minorities.
So why the sudden clamor for religious freedom?
In fact, the clamor is not all that sudden. It dates to January 18, 1977, the day that Miami-Dade County tried to stop employment and housing discrimination based on sexual orientation. At the public hearing, angry opponents crowded into the chamber. They followed an unlikely leader: Anita Bryant, singer, spokesmodel, Miss America runner-up, and Good Housekeeping magazine’s “Most Admired Woman in America.” She wrote to the commission, “if this ordinance amendment is allowed to become law, you will in fact be infringing upon my right or rather DISCRIMINATING against me as a citizen and mother to teach my children and set examples or point to others as examples of God’s moral code as stated in the Holy Scriptures.”
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http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/04/04/anita-bryant-and-the-myth-of-the-militant-homosexual.html
39 replies
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= new reply since forum marked as read
Anita Jane Bryant (born March 25, 1940) is an American singer, former Miss Oklahoma beauty pageant winner, former spokeswoman (brand ambassador) for the Florida Citrus Commission (marketing orange juice), and outspoken opponent of homosexuality. She scored four Top 40 hits in the United States in the late 1950s and early 1960s, including "Paper Roses", which reached #5. She later became known for her strong opposition to homosexuality and for her 1977 "Save Our Children" campaign to repeal a local ordinance in Dade County, Florida, that prohibited discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, an involvement that significantly affected her popularity and career in show business.[1]
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On June 7, 1977, Bryant's campaign led to a repeal of the anti-discrimination ordinance by a margin of 69 to 31 percent. However, the success of Bryant's campaign galvanized her opponents and the gay community retaliated against her by organizing a boycott of orange juice.[13] Gay bars all over North America took screwdrivers off their drink menus and replaced them with the "Anita Bryant," which was made with vodka and apple juice.[14] Sales and proceeds went to gay civil rights activists to help fund their fight against Bryant and her campaign.[14]
In 1977, Florida legislators approved a measure prohibiting gay adoption.[13] The ban was overturned more than 30 years later when, on November 25, 2008, Miami-Dade Circuit Court Judge Cindy S. Lederman declared it unconstitutional. Bryant led several more campaigns around the country to repeal local anti-discrimination ordinances, including in St. Paul, Minnesota; Wichita, Kansas; and Eugene, Oregon. Her success led to an effort to pass the Briggs Initiative in California, which would have made pro-gay or neutral statements regarding homosexual people or homosexuality by any public school employee cause for dismissal.[13] Grass-roots liberal organizations, chiefly in Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area, sprang up to defeat the initiative. Days before the election, the California Democratic Party opposed the proposed legislation. Former governor and future president Ronald Reagan voiced opposition to the initiative, and it ultimately suffered a massive defeat at the polls.[14]
In 1998, Dade County repudiated Bryant's successful campaign of 20 years earlier and reauthorized an anti-discrimination ordinance protecting individuals from discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation by a seven-to-six vote. In 2002, a ballot initiative to repeal the 1998 law, called Amendment 14, was voted down by 56 percent of the voters.[14] The Florida statute forbidding gay adoption was upheld in 2004 by a federal appellate court against a constitutional challenge but was overturned by a Miami-Dade circuit court in November 2008.[15]
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anita_Bryant
Pie in the face:
2014
One I saw in 1977 when I was in court reporting school at the local junior college, worn by my gay friend Bruce:
SQUEEZE A FRUIT FOR ANITA 
Riffing off of her commercials for orange juice.
She said in those commercials "A day without orange juice is a day without sunshine."
One I saw recently: A DAY WITHOUT NUCLEAR FUSION IS A DAY WITHOUT SUNSHINE
Sorry, I live with a man who eats, sleeps and breathes nuclear physics and math. Nerd joke.