Gospel Singers

"We are living in the midst of a social revolution in our society. My heart's cry is wake up, wake up America, before it's too late."

"God provides access to Him at all times and in all places. You can enter a new relationship to God at this moment through His Son Jesus Christ. It doesn't matter if you never approached Him before, or if you once knew Him but have turned away. Even if you're not quite convinced in your heart that God exists and that He cares for you, He still wants to hear from you."

"Anita Bryant was a phenomenon of the late seventies – an entertainer who was willing to stand up to the vilest and most scurrilous kind of public abuse for the sake of family, morality, simple decency, and the Word of God. She suffered much more than anyone will ever know. She paid a tremendous price. But her confidence always rested in God. The Tulsa, Oklahoma Tribune described her as a square gal out of Tulsa originally, “Who believes in such things as blueberry and apple pie, God, country and the difference between men and women.” Anita liked that she will always be remembered as a witness to and defender of the Truth in the twentieth century. A real heroine."

"When we started in January 1977, I didn't realize the Dade County situation would lead to a national organization to help other cities. The response has been staggering. I pray that when you, the reader, read news articles or hear news about my public and private life, you will not let the liberal press slant your view."

"The hurt in my heart and the agony in my soul were of such intensity that when I was home and first got the news of a national homosexual bill similar to the one in Dade County, all I could do was cry. This bill, HR2998, would have the effect of making it mandatory nationwide to hire known practicing homosexuals in public schools and in other areas. With all the thousands of other letters I received from groups all over the country dealing with pornography, abortion, TV violence, ERA, and various other things, all I could do was weep for America. There are no words in the English language strong enough to describe the grief I felt."

"In the final analysis, we are accountable to God. I may not have the media or the entertainment industry backing me, but I know I do have the backing of the majority of the American people. It is not anything I sought or asked for; but what the militant homosexual community has meant for evil, God has meant and used for good. And that is biblical."

"The media misquoted me, saying that I called homosexuals garbage. That was not what I said. As I talked about our concern for the health and diet of our children and other people's children, I said, "If they are exposed to homosexuality, I might as well feed them garbage." I think there is a difference, but I leave it to the reader to interpret as you wish- we did not resort to name-calling at any time during the campaign in Miami."

"Nowadays many intelligent young women attempt to establish good homes on mere social and psychological precepts. They turn to well-meaning advice you find in popular magazines. I don't knock it. Much of it is good. However, it never goes far enough. It will leave you stranded every time. If you truly are serious about life, nothing short of Jesus can suffice."

"The attempt by homosexuals to label this as a civil-rights issue was nothing but camouflage. If we as a nation eventually came to the place where this is sanctioned as a legitimate civil-rights issue, then what is to stop the adulterer from claiming "adulterer rights," the murderer from shouting "murderer rights," the thief to claim "extortioner rights," and a rebellious young person to insist on "rebellious-child rights"?"

"God makes people this way... What could be more erroneous than to blame God for the sin of homosexuality? No one can lay that charge to the Almighty. Research data consistently show that homosexuals must make a choice whether to act out their sexual preference or to keep it under control. Jerry Kirk in his book The Homosexual Crisis in the Mainline Church states that righteousness, not research, will decide where the church must stand. As of now the claims of scientists and researchers are contradictory. Either the church stands on the claims of the Word of God and faces up to the fact that God calls for moral responsibility, or it will be held accountable for failure to hold up the standards of righteousness."

"The attendant stresses and strains on her family and marriage finally took their toll and in 1980, Bob and Anita were divorced. Then her world caved in and she was caught between those who opposed her stand and those who condemned her for divorce. The churches dropped her just as the world had. There was nowhere else to turn but to take her children and go back home to Oklahoma, not having a clue as to how to provide for her family, but she knew her family would love just plain Anita Jane, and they did. But for Anita Bryant what happened then? After you are forced into retirement at forty, with four kids to support? After the divorce, the sensationalism and blacklisting, rejection, late night talk shows ridicule, and even a pie in the face?"

"The last three tours abroad with Bob Hope took my husband and I to Viet Nam. There was distinct danger those times, and more than once Bob and I discussed the wisdom of our flying together so much. With two small children to consider, we knew we should not take unnecessary risks. Still, something continued to draw us on, as Bob Hope said it would. That something is the incredible courage and stamina of the American fighting man, and still more, respect for all the good and decent things he stands for as an individual. We soon learned that these men wanted good, wholesome entertainment, not just cheap laughs. They wanted to look at a real woman from back home, not just what Bob Hope called the "sexpot type." And Bob and I learned that these men, who often lived and worked just moments away from death, very much cared about God."

"Those girls who give themselves to the man they love before marriage really succeed in cheating themselves. I know and understand how strong the temptation is, but also I know something else: there is nothing else more beautiful and wonderful than sexual love between marriage partners- when that love is entered into and blessed by God. Why would anyone want to accept anything less?"

"I stood only three feet before my audience. As we began the "Battle Hymn," I sang with great concentration, my eyes half closed. Suddenly I felt the power of the Holy Spirit within that room. As the hymn gathered force, I knew the Lord was speaking to me and to everyone else there. Then the President of the United States and all the other people in that historic room rose to their feet, applauding and cheering. For a long, unforgettable moment, the great American hymn held us close to one another. Certainly, for me, it was an awesome moment. But the awe I felt within the White House that night surpassed everything I might have felt about the world figures who were gathered there. What each of us felt that night, I am convinced, was the unmistakable authority of Almighty God."

"President Lyndon B. Johnson reminded me of my dad. Genial, full of homespun humor and stories about Texas, he is really down-to-earth and genuine, very much his own man. One episode in particular illustrates to me the special thoughtfulness of President and Mrs. Johnson. Bob and I were visiting them informally in their White House living room when the President invited us to bring Bobby and Gloria to call on him in the White House. "When would be a good time?" we asked. "You'd better make it before Easter," Mrs. Johnson suggested. She must have known at that time that within weeks her husband would surprise the world with his announcement that he did not intend to seek reelection. President Johnson received us and our children in the anteroom to his White House office. I imagine Bob and I felt as apprehensive as any other parents might have felt, wondering if their youngsters would do or say anything unpredictable during a call on America's chief executive! "You sure look like somebody I know," President Johnson said, stooping low to meet Gloria's eyes. "And you look like your daddy," he told Bobby."

"We sometimes refer to those who oppose the struggles of minorities and people in the Third World as the "super-Americans." They claim the melting-pot theory still applies. They would like all of us to be melted, poured, and cast... and cloned into the all-American boy and girl. So we will all come out looking like Pat Boone and Anita Bryant. They would like all of us to buy their argument that the strength of our country is in its conformity to one ethnic and cultural heritage."

"Bob and I began to relax. To our children, the President wasn't the President, but a very nice granddaddy. When he pulled out a drawer and gave them candy, there was immediate rapport. During a nice, chatty visit, the President also presented our youngsters with pens, and gave Bobby a tie clasp and Gloria a charm. There were mementoes for Bob and me, too: cuff links with the presidential seal for him, a perfume atomizer and a charm with the presidential seal for me."

"Hey, Fuck Aneta Bryant Who the Hell is she Telling all them faggots That they can't be free Throw that bitch in prison Then maybe she'll see Just how much them goddamned homosexuals mean to me"

"In the subsequent years when the gay rights controversies made her anathema to most mainstream television programmers and advertisers, she continued to enjoy name value among some older consumers who came to see her first in Branson, Missouri, where she and her second husband opened a theater in the early ’90s, and then Nashville, where she moved in 1998 to put on a live variety extravaganza. Bryant moved back to Oklahoma in 2002 to care for her ill mother, deciding to remain in the state thereafter because of its friendliness to her traditional religious values. Well out of the limelight, she worked on writing inspirational books and founding Anita Bryant Ministries International. Bryant was preceded in death by her husband, Charlie, and is survived by four children, two stepdaughters, and seven grandchildren and their spouses."

"In 1977, Bryant began fronting a “Save Our Children” campaign aimed at repealing an ordinance in Miami-Dade County that prohibited discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. The crusade was successful in getting the ordinance repealed that year by a popular vote. (It was not restored until 1998.) For the next three years, her activism against such regulations made her a poster girl for the religious right and the foremost public archenemy of the gay community and social liberals. Her statement that she “loves homosexuals, but hates their sin” became a sort of mantra for evangelicals — and a much-mocked meme among what would later be known as the LGBTQ community — for decades to come."

"Before she campaigned across the nation attacking the rights of LGBTQ+ people, Bryant was a pop singer and winner of the 1958 Miss Oklahoma pageant. She launched her notorious “Save Our Children” campaign in response to a historic 1977 gay rights ordinance in Dade County, Fla., which made it one of the first counties to ban employment and housing discrimination based on sexual orientation. Bryant’s campaign adopted the mantra, “Homosexuals cannot reproduce, so they must recruit,” championing religious purity and aiming to protect children from supposed anti-Christian values. Bryant’s virulent rhetoric, including in press conferences and commercials, swiftly gained her a national conservative following. Famed televangelist Jerry Falwell Sr. even came to Florida to help her. Bryant’s efforts led Dade County to put its anti-discrimination ordinance up for public vote. A shocking 70% of residents opted to repeal it, making discrimination against LGBTQ+ people legal again in the area. The county restored the ordinance 21 years later, in 1998."

"The name Anita Bryant is synonymous with homophobic vitriol. Throughout the 1970s, the infamous anti-LGBTQ+ crusader waged a vicious war on LGBTQ+ rights, accusing queer people of corrupting youth through her infamous “Save Our Children” campaign. Now, her granddaughter is marrying a woman. On a July 8 episode of Slate’s One Year podcast, Sarah Green, the daughter of Bryant’s son, Robert Green Jr., opened up about coming out to her grandmother at age 21. On a phone call, Bryant was wishing her happy birthday, Green explained, when she went off on a diatribe about how someday Green would find a suitable husband. “She would not stop talking about the right man coming along, and I just snapped,” Green said, adding that she told her grandmother: 'I hope that he doesn't come along, because I'm gay, and I don't want a man to come along.’” Green’s father, who also spoke on the podcast, remembered Bryant’s reaction of utter shock. “All at once, her eyes widened, her smile opened, and out came the oddest sound: ‘Oh,’” he said. But Green’s admission has not seemed to soften Bryant’s heart one bit. “Instead of taking Sarah as she is,” Green’s father added, “my mom has chosen to pray that Sarah will eventually conform to my mom’s idea of what God wants Sarah to be.” Green has been struggling with her relationship with her grandmother ever since. “It’s very hard to argue with someone who thinks that an integral part of your identity is just an evil delusion,” Green said. “She wants a relationship with a person who doesn’t exist because I’m not the person she wants me to be.""

"Bryant’s success in Dade County led to a host of victories for her campaign around the country and helped make anti-LGBTQ+ beliefs a crux of conservative values. But on a more positive note, a protest against Bryant in 1977 also became a timeless symbol of queer resilience: While speaking to reporters at a Des Moines, Iowa press conference about her anti-gay crusade, activist Tom Higgins famously pied her in the face. Decades later, Bryant’s granddaughter is trying to decide whether to invite her to the wedding. “I think I probably will eventually just call her and ask if she even wants an invitation, because I genuinely do not know how she would respond,” Green said. “I don’t know if she would be offended if I didn’t invite her.”"

"And just what did Anita Bryant do anyway, apart from persuasively speaking her piece from her point of view? She wasn't the issue, nor were her fundamentalist beliefs the issue. The issue was an ill-considered ordinance that proposed to tell employers whom they must hire, not on the basis of aptitude and qualification for the job, but on the basis of sexual preference, habit or aberration. Had the ordinance not been defeated, how long does one suppose it would have taken the bureaucrats to establish quotas for such hiring? And who would be the next in line demanding their rights? The sado-masochists and the cult of bestiality? If this country would try to get its collective mind out of its groin for five minutes it might recognize that the issue in this melancholy wrangle wasn't Anita Bryant or the rights of homosexuals. It was another blatant attempt by government to impose improper rules and restrictions upon free men and women. The ordinance was bad law; and it was repealed because it was bad law. Anita Bryant is only a convenient kicking object for the hysterical."

"Echoes of the Dade County, Florida war rumble on, and Anita Bryant, the Orange Juice girl who became chief protagonist on the side of the victors, emerges as a composite Lucrezia Borgia and Madame Defarge: Militant piety in a Jacobin cap. Miss Bryant is accused of fomenting mass hysteria; of bringing shame upon the nation; of engineering, unassisted, a massive defeat of democracy, and of single-handedly thrusting the country back into the dark ages. Mercy me! One small lady did that? One frenzied letter to our leading herald here in Seattle manages somehow to link Miss Bryant with the anti-Chinese "hysteria" that allegedly overtook the whole country at the turn of the century, the Japanese "exclusion act" of the 1920s (it wasn't exclusion, it was an entry quota), the Japanese resettlement act of World War II, and something the writer calls the "expatriation" of Filipinos. Maybe she means repatriation, which is decidedly different. "Will this country never free itself of this mass hysteria?" the writer asks. "Must every generation shield its children from those few individuals who can tolerate nothing that does not incorporate their own life style...?" Talk about hysteria! Now, honestly, does any reasonable person really suppose Anita Bryant managed all that? Isn't it possible that the homosexual community is itself responsible in large measure for this controversy? After all, no one paid them much attention, on the job or off, until they started jabbering publicly about their sex lives, like the cretins in television and the movies who suppose their bedroom activities are somehow of interest to, or the business of, everyone else."

"The image of Bryant that emerges from the Carson monologues- repeatedly to the cheers and laughter of, one presumes, a largely heterosexual studio audience- is that of a prudish, self-righteous fanatic. Was the New York blackout an "act of God"? No, said Carson, because "Anita Bryant would never have given Him time off.""

"Anita Bryant, a former beauty queen and pop singer of the 1960s whose career led her to become a spokesperson for Florida oranges in the early ’70s and an evangelical crusader against gay rights later in that decade, died Dec. 16 at age 84, her family announced Thursday. The family’s obituary for Anita Bryant Day, as she was known outside the public sphere, was published in her hometown newspaper, the Oklahoman, and said the singer-activist died at home last month in Edmond, Oklahoma, surrounded by family and friends. During her heyday as a public figure, Bryant was one of the most polarizing celebrities in America, vilified by much of the show business community for campaigning against what she viewed as a gay takeover of American culture, while being embraced as a hero by many religious conservatives. Prior to her taking those stands, she was best known for her appearances in commercials for Florida oranges that introduced the catchphrase “Breakfast without orange juice is like a day without sunshine” — and many parodies of that statement — into the popular lexicon. Those advertisements eclipsed her long-dormant career as a pop singer, even as she made a move into recording gospel music after easy-listening sounds fell out of fashion in the rock era."

"And to the bigots, to the John Briggs, to the Anita Bryants, to the Kevin Starrs and all their ilk... Let me remind you what America is... listen carefully. On the Statue of Liberty, it says, “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to be free...” In the Declaration of Independence it is written, “All men are created equal and they are endowed with certain inalienable rights...” And in our National Anthem it says: “Oh, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave o’er the land of the free.” For Mr. Briggs and Mrs. Green and Mr. Starr and all the bigots out there: that’s what America is. No matter how hard you try, you cannot erase those words from the Declaration of Independence. No matter how hard you try, you cannot chip those words from off the base of the Statue of Liberty. And no matter how hard you try, you cannot sing the “Star Spangled Banner” without those words. That’s what America is. Love it or leave it."

"There is a difference between morality and murder. The fact that more people have been slaughtered in the name of religion than for any other single reason. That, that, my friends, is the true perversion! For the standards that we set, should we look to next week’s headlines? Well, I’m tired of the lies of the Anita Bryants and the John Briggs. I’m tired of their myths. I’m tired of their distortions. I’m speaking out about it."

"During Bryant's campaign, she invoked religious and morality arguments into her speeches and political commercials. These arguments were often built on her underlying assumption that being gay was morally wrong. Knowing that she could not simply rely on demonizing gays, she tried to develop a message that was both secular and promoted a goal that would be uniformly accepted-that nothing should be done to harm children... To show how overturning the gay rights law would promote this seemingly neutral goal, she needed to show how gays were harmful to children. The central part of this argument was that because gays and lesbians could not have children naturally, they would need to recruit children to be gay, which was morally unacceptable. To show how the fight against the Dade County ordinance was based on protecting the children, Anita Bryant and her husband named the group "Save Our Children.""

"Nearly half a century later, Bryant’s campaign drew parallels to Florida’s Parental Rights in Education bill, dubbed the “Don’t Say Gay” bill by its opponents. The law, which passed in 2022, prohibits classroom instruction on sexual orientation or gender identity in “kindergarten through grade 3 or in a manner that is not age-appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students in accordance with state standards.” A year later it was expanded to apply through eighth grade. Bryant’s anti-gay rhetoric ultimately led to the downfall of her promising music and television career. The Florida Citrus Commission stopped running her orange juice ads and she was dropped by her booking agent, forcing her to file for bankruptcy twice. And the antidiscrimination ordinance she helped repeal in 1977 was ultimately restored in 1998. Bryant’s granddaughter Sarah Green, who married a woman, told Slate in 2021 that she came out to her grandmother on her 21st birthday. Green told Slate that Bryant responded by saying homosexuality isn’t real. At the end of her life, Bryant led Anita Bryant Ministries International, “an organization encouraging others to live with faith and purpose,” Bryant’s obituary reads."

"Gay people, we are painted as child molestors. I want to talk about that. I want to talk about the myth of child molestations by gays. I want to talk about the fact that in this state some 95 percent of child molestations are heterosexual and usually committed by a parent. I want to talk about the fact that all child abandonments are heterosexual. I want to talk about the fact that all abuse of children is by their heterosexual parents. I want to talk about the fact that some 98 percent of the six million rapes committed annually are heterosexual. I want to talk about the fact that one out of every three women who will be murdered in this state this year will be murdered by their husbands. I want to talk about the fact that some 30 percent of all heterosexual marriages contain domestic violence. And finally, I want to tell the John Briggs and the Anita Bryants that they talk about the myths of gays, but today I’m talking about the facts of heterosexual violence and what the hell are you going to do about that? Clean up your own house before you start telling lies about gays. Don’t distort the Bible to hide your own sins. Don’t change facts to lies. Don’t look for cheap political advantage in playing upon people’s fears! Judging by the latest polls, even the youth can tell you’re lying! Anita Bryant, John Briggs: Your unwillingness to talk about your own house, your deliberate lies and distortions, your unwillingness to face the truth, chills my blood. It reeks of madness!"

"People, get ready! If you are racist, sexist, classist, or homophobic, my child is going to think you are strange."

"Anita Bryant, the godmother of modern anti-LGBTQ+ moral panics, died on December 16, 2024 at the age of 84, so it’s finally time that we eulogize her life’s most meaningful accomplishment: getting pied in the face for being such a rabid bigot. Bryant, whose family confirmed her death in an obituary this week, was named Miss Oklahoma in 1958 and rose to fame as a singer in the 1960s. But in 1977, Bryant torpedoed her own performing career by becoming the spokesperson for a campaign to repeal a Dade County, Florida ordinance banning anti-gay discrimination — a decision that would make her name synonymous with homophobia for the next 50 years."

"If homosexuality was the normal way, God would have made Adam and Bruce."

"If homosexuals are allowed to change the law in their favor, why not prostitutes, thieves, or murderers? [...] Some of the stories I could tell you of child recruitment and child abuse by homosexuals would turn your stomach."

"I'm convinced that when you turn your business over to God entirely, He not only will send you exactly the type work that's best for your talents and your nature, but He'll help you begin to aim higher, so your ambitions will become more worthy of Him. It becomes a matter of really trusting the Lord to provide. This has to be learned. It may sound strange to those who don't operate the way Bob and I do, but we absolutely know the Lord will open all the right doors."

"For years, as I've said, Bob has worked hard for our family's sake to cut traveling to a minimum. But there are some 300,000 miles that he and I shared that we wouldn't take back for anything. I mean the world-famous Bob Hope Holiday tours to the armed forces stationed in remote posts overseas, on behalf of the U.S.O. "Go with us one time, Anita, and it will get into your blood," Bob Hope suggested in 1960, the first year Bob and I were married. "You'll never play to a greater audience.""

"In many times and places, mine eyes have seen the glory, I thought. And sometimes, when our eyes are opened to Him, the glory seems particularly bright- at home."

"A Christian home never comes about by accident. I believe it must require more grace and hard work than any other organization on earth. Bob and I receive letters every day from Americans who express deep yearnings and real concern for the quality of life in their homes. They know they need God in their lives. How do you find this? They ask us. Where do you begin? To establish a Christian home, you must begin with the individuals in it. More accurately, you must start with yourself- wherever you are, whatever your role. The initial step is to make sure your own relationship with God is right by accepting His Son, Jesus Christ, as your personal Lord and Saviour. Nothing else can happen until you do. But when that right relationship is established, anything can happen. I mean it. We get so many letters telling about miracles that happened within four walls of a home. You can only praise Jesus for them! However, a "good" home will never be good enough."

"My cooking days began in Mother and Grandma Berry's kitchen. They allowed me to try all kinds of cooking "experiments." Then Grandpa and Grandma would taste the new dish and brag just like it was the tastiest meal ever. It never occurred to me that they might be speaking more out of love than out of truth."

"I truly felt (and feel) a strong sense of God's leadership in pursuing the thing I loved best- singing. I believe God gave me a voice to be used for His glory. He carefully guided me, constantly providing opportunities for each step of development in a career. I simply had to do my best, practice, prepare, and follow Him. In fact, my whole career is simply a study of God's plan and leadership. As long as I trusted Him for guidance, He miraculously showed me one step at a time. Every time I began to take things into my own hands or began to walk over people, or became too ambitious, God had ways of putting me in my place."

"The militant homosexuals in this country and their sympathizers don't realize the extent of my Christian convictions. They don't comprehend what my commitment to Christ really means. They think that my priorities are where their priorities are- in money, careers, power, doing what makes one feel good. It is not even within their realms of thinking that someone would sacrifice her career to stand for what she believes. But this I have been willing to do. The "gay" activists cannot comprehend that we have been the happiest in our lives since all this began, because we know we are doing what God has asked us to do. There is no satisfaction that equals it. The Lord and our family come first. This is what, in the idiom of the world, "turns us on." We have not been destroyed because of this; we have been strengthened. Through it all I was working as if everything depended on me, but I was praying, knowing everything depended on God. And it did! And it does! And He does not let down those who trust and obey Him."

"To talk about the "rights" of someone who has chosen to rebel against responsible living is nonsense. It is simply not true that all human beings have the same rights."

"I repeat my belief: Homosexuals do not suffer discrimination when they keep their perversions in the privacy of their homes. They can hold any job, transact any business, join any organization- so long as they do not flaunt their homosexuality and try to establish role models for the impressionable young people- our children. I will continue to fight the attempts of Metro, and the attempts of a few Congressmen who on February 2 presented a similar type of bill in the Congress of the United States to legitimize homosexuality. Homosexuals cannot reproduce- so they must recruit. And to freshen their ranks, they must recruit the youth of America. I shall continue to fight against that recruitment. Those who do not share my conviction may continue to blacklist my talent- but with God's help, they can never blacken my name."

"God's blessing and gratitude... To all those others who served with us during the campaign in Miami, many of whom we disagree with on many issues, political and otherwise, but, who are united with us in the preservation of the American family unit and the attacks on this unit by certain militant segments of our society."

"We have a determined foe. It calls for a mighty show of strength by the hitherto silent masses. We believe that the silent majority in America will not allow this destruction of either me or this nation to take place."

"On the talk-show program, Ed showed the duplicity of Ken Kelly in trying to make me look anti-Semitic. Kelly had made it appear that I hate Jews and that I had singled out and assigned them to hell. The Bible teaches that those who reject Jesus Christ are lost and doomed to separation from Him in heaven. There is a heaven, and there is a hell. The idea did not originate with me. God has provided a way of salvation, and if men choose to reject this plan, then they are going to have to pay the penalty- non-Jews, as well as Jews. It has nothing to do with a person's ethnic background."

"As a mother, I know that homosexuals cannot biologically reproduce children. [...] [T]herefore, they must recruit our children. If gays are granted rights, next we'll have to give rights to prostitutes and to people who sleep with St. Bernards and to nailbiters."

"[Bryant] says: homosexuals have organized themselves into a widespread and well-financed militant organization. Although few in numbers, they attempt to terrorize opponents by telling the big lie and by making themselves appear more numerous than they actually are. Many of Bryant's terms and images- indeed, the reiterated word "militant"- derive from American anti-Communist rhetoric. Presumably that militancy justifies her repeated use of war metaphors and her appropriation of the "Battle Hymn of the Republic" as a campaign jingle. This is not a simple application of Red-baiting rhetoric to homosexuals. After all, homosexuals and Communists were already explicitly associated by McCarthy. Bryant does something more. She reverses McCarthy's accent: homosexuals, not Communists, are now public enemy number one."