Women Activists From The United States

"I just think it’s the world we live in and there is no real metric to measure us by because CNN is the only one that is still doing journalism."

"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 The ordinance was bad law; and it was repealed because it was bad law.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."

"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 The crusade was successful in getting the ordinance repealed that year by a popular vote.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."

"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."

"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.”"

"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.""

"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.""

"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."

"Because Bryant was then a spokesperson for the Florida Citrus Commission, activists distributed “Anita Bryant Sucks Oranges” pins and organized orange juice boycotts at gay bars across the country, replacing screwdrivers with “The Anita Bryant” (a cocktail of apple juice and vodka). The backlash against Bryant herself even inspired drag queens to hold lookalike contests in her “honor” at Pride marches in 1977, as Drag magazine noted, and reinvigorated a sense of solidarity. “It seems that the unifying factor of the visible enemy caused many gays to set aside political differences and march together again,” a Drag writer wrote at the time. “In so doing, a trend of declining attendance at the march was reversed.” Of course, it was the famous pie incident that cemented Bryant’s legacy as a hateful laughingstock of LGBTQ+ history. On October 14, 1977, Bryant gave a televised address in Des Moines, Iowa, in which she dismissed LGBTQ+ people who “want to flaunt” their identity rather than remain closeted. As Bryant spoke, Thom Higgins — a gay rights activist who is credited with coining the term “gay pride” years previously — approached her and unceremoniously deposited a fruit pie covered in whipped cream on Bryant’s face. Truly, it was history’s most perfect facial, made even better moments later when Bryant began praying for Higgins to be “delivered from his deviant lifestyle” through stifled sobs. (Queer people can have a little schadenfreude, as a treat.) Apart from taking a pie to the kisser like a weird evangelical Ringling Bros. act, Bryant will be best remembered for her true God-given legacy, by which we mean her out-and-proud granddaughter Sarah Green. Enjoy looking up at the queerness you helped bring into the world, Anita! We’re sure you are missed, somewhere, by someone, but we are too hungry for pie to do it ourselves right now."

"Today’s celebrities might sign their names to letters that suck, but Bryant went much further, advocating for homosexuality to be a felony and spearheading the “Save Our Children” campaign against gay rights by accusing LGBTQ+ people of grooming minors. “The recruitment of our children is absolutely necessary for the survival and growth of homosexuality,” Bryant’s group wrote in newspaper ads, “for since homosexuals cannot reproduce, they must recruit, must freshen their ranks.” (The campaign was later forced to change its name to “Protect America’s Children” after legal action from the humanitarian organization Save the Children.) Among Bryant’s new allies was infamous evangelical pastor Jerry Falwell, who appeared at rallies alongside Bryant to preach against LGBTQ+ “recruitment.” But although Bryant’s campaign kicked off a new era of anti-LGBTQ+ conservatism — essentially writing the playbook for today’s moral panic against transgender people — she also inadvertently galvanized the then-floundering gay rights movement itself. Bryant’s campaign and her involvement with the Dade County discrimination ordinance quickly made her an archnemesis to millions of LGBTQ+ people across the U.S."

"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."

"And school children catch on inevitably and quickly. Little pitchers have big ears, as our forebears were fond of saying, and it's still true. Their reasoning is stark in its simplicity and as certain as sunrise: "If it's okay to hire a pervert to teach in a public institution and if it's okay to pay a pervert with tax money and if it's okay to put a pervert in charge of the educational destinies of children, then it must be okay to be a pervert." This, fellow Americans, we simply cannot have. We cannot have it because the actual survival of our country in the years ahead depends upon a generation which will be straight, not distorted- sensible, not absurd. Where do I sign up for the duration, General Bryant?"

"Here's why I'm lining up in the Bryant Brigade. Not because I want any American denied his or her constitutional rights. Not because I want particularly to be beastly to the bisexual or nasty to the nance. No, it's because children- especially young children- reason this way, and you'd better believe it: "Mom and Dad tell me to mind the teacher, to listen carefully to what she tells me. So what she does and what she is must be okay, fine and dandy." But what the homosexual teacher does and is are most emphatically not okay, fine or dandy at all. Such people, whether willingly or unwillingly, are abnormal by the very definition of the word. The ancient Jews who wrote the Torah used an interesting term to identify the act of sodomy: "confusion." That's what it is, you know. Confusion of the sex roles. Confusion of the biological purpose behind the sex act. Confusion of masculinity with femininity. Confusion thrice combined."

"Now that the smoke has cleared from last month's big shoot-out in the Dade County corral, let's take a closer look at one aspect of Anita Bryant. The lady is, incidentally, a phenomenon- that rarest of rare birds these days: a female entertainer willing to stand up to the vilest and most scurrilous kind of public abuse for the sake of morality, simple decency and Holy Scripture. But it's the "one aspect" I want to zero in on. Anita doesn't want her children taught in tax-supported public schools by sex perverts. Do you?"

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

"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.""

"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."

"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!"

"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."

"Bryant was perhaps most well-known for her advocacy against gay rights in 1977 and foray into Florida politics. Her “Save Our Children” campaign painted gays and lesbians as a threat to the country’s youth. The effort at the time successfully overturned a then-newly passed Miami-Dade County law that prohibited discrimination based on sexual orientation in housing, employment and public services. “Homosexuals cannot reproduce, so they must recruit. And to freshen their ranks, they must recruit the youth of America,” Bryant famously declared."

"Anita Bryant, a Grammy-nominated singer and former beauty queen who became known for her advocacy against gay rights in the 1970s, died Dec. 16. She was 84. Bryant died surrounded by family and loved ones at her home in Edmond, Oklahoma, according to an obituary posted Thursday in The Oklahoman, a newspaper in Oklahoma City. She started her promising music career as a child before being crowned Miss Oklahoma at age 18. As an adult, her career in music blossomed, with Bryant singing at both Democratic and Republican national conventions in 1968 and the Super Bowl in 1971. She sang “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” at President Lyndon B. Johnson’s graveside. Bryant again achieved national prominence in the 1970s, serving as the TV spokesperson for Florida orange juice and for Coca-Cola."

"[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."

"I am more interested in how the Bryant campaign clarifies the continuing history of church debates over homosexuality. It rearticulates decisively the rhetorical devices that some Christian groups had used for decades to "battle" sexual danger. Bryant's performance displays in their mature forms many features of churchly condemnation of homosexuality. She quotes scriptures and rehearses what are supposed to be arguments. She lends her considerable stage presence to the repertoire of inherited topics. But more importantly she performs a rhetoric of compassion and cursing that claims the vulnerability of the young as justification for waging war on homosexuals. The Bryant campaign deploys the professedly, aggressively "Christian" rhetoric that still surrounds us, that still works in us and on us."

"The Bryant campaign shows something of the techniques and the stages through which the "Religious Right" came to dominate American electoral politics by defending the family, that is, fatherly (or Fatherly) regulation of sex and gender. It should be no surprise that Anita's immediate supporters included the televangelists Jim Bakker and Pat Robertson. Jerry Falwell not only invited her to his show, he lent her experienced campaign staff. Dade County was a laboratory for the Religious Right, in which it learned the usefulness of homosexuality as a wedge issue for both churchly and secular politics- or rather for the fusion of the two. But the Bryant campaign has also been read in the opposite direction, so far as she provoked a new rhetoric of national gay and lesbian politics not quite a decade after Stonewall. During the campaign, activists claimed Bryant provided a national rallying point around which various queer groups could converge- including, importantly, both lesbian and gay groups. The electoral defeat over the ordinance led to much more important electoral victories, including the defeat of the Briggs Initiative in California in the fall of 1978. Or so the stories go."

"Long before the public struggle of Dade County began early in 1977, Anita Bryant had been fashioned and refashioned as a public figure, though not explicitly a political one. Of course, the politics of a certain brand of patriotism are there all along. So are the politics of gender. Once Miss Oklahoma (1958) and second runner-up for Miss America (1959), Anita began as a singer with a predictable mixture of patriotic songs, romantic ballads (In A Velvet Mood), and hymns. She joined the Bob Hope Christmas Tours to American soldiers overseas and sang frequently at the White House for LBJ- indeed, she delivered her signature song, the "Battle Hymn of the Republic," at his funeral. In the same years, she appeared in the Billy Graham Evangelistic Crusade. Then she began to write- her Christian testimony, of course, but also "inspirational" books, many with her husband, including a "Christian" program for physical fitness. Her husband did not author her Christian cookbook. In attributing these books to Bryant, I consent to a sort of authorial fiction. Many of her public statements, including her books, were ghostwritten by others, and there is internal reason to conclude that the most political books were pasted together by several hands from various sources. There is no need to decipher this authorship, because I am only interested in the character Bryant represents rhetorically- in Bryant as a papier mâché torso fashioned out of scraps of speech. I am interested in the rhetorical work, the extraordinary performance that this figure can accomplish despite the evident flaws in the speech assigned to it. Like Anita herself, the books overcome defects of form by the melodrama of their appeals and the menacing certainty of their convictions."

"Sandy Hill: Liv, why do you feel so strongly about speaking out against Anita Bryant and her cause? Liv Ullmann: Because it's a violation of human rights, civil rights, and it doesn't concern only gay people, it concerns everybody, who sooner or later in life might belong to a group that will be discriminated against."

"Controversial? Here was a fine and decent lady, a dedicated Christian, who had dared to speak out. And because she did, her contract was canceled. Small wonder that business people in America today are so rapidly losing the respect of the citizens of this country. If this is an example of those who are the greatest beneficiaries of the free enterprise system, it is a clear indication that if and when the free enterprise system dies, it will be suicide, not murder. Proud- I am proud of Anita Bryant. In my several conversations with her in recent weeks, I have pledged my full support to her. I don't know whether the Koch bill will be approved by the House of Representatives. But this much I do know: If and when it gets to the U.S. Senate, I will fight it with every means at my command, with every bit of strength I can muster. Maybe you'd like to drop Miss Anita Bryant a note of encouragement. If so, send it to me, and I'll make certain she receives it. She is fighting for decency and morality in America- and that makes her, in my book, an All-American lady."

"In particular, she condemned legislation introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives on January 4 by Congressman Edward I. Koch (pronounced "Kosh"), a member of the New York delegation in Congress. Mr. Koch was nominated by both the Democratic Party and the Liberal Party of New York. The bill that he introduced bears the number H.R. 2998. The title of Mr. Koch's bill states that its purpose is to prohibit discrimination on the basis of affectional or sexual preference... Specifically, the bill would amend the so-called Civil Rights Act of 1964 in several ways. Among other things, employers would be required by federal law to seek out and hire homosexuals on a quota basis. This would include schools, hospitals and other institutions. Failure to comply with the requirement (to hire homosexuals) would result in the loss of federal aid. When Anita Bryant dared to speak out against this bill she found herself in deep trouble. In Miami, her home city, the homosexuals (who call themselves "gays" organized, and began a pressure campaign to intimidate the Singer Sewing Machine Company, whch was to have been the sponsor of a television series featuring Anita Bryant. Anita's contract for the television series was abruptly canceled. An official of the Singer Company made clear that, all of a sudden, Anita Bryant was "controversial.""

"During the past few weeks, I have talked by telephone on numerous occasions with a fine, Christian lady whose face and voice are familiar to most Americans. Her name is Anita Bryant. She has stood beside Billy Graham during his televised crusades. No doubt you have seen her also as she appeared on television commercials advertising Florida orange juice. She is a lovely person, deeply committed to Christianity. She is also a concerned American- concerned about the erosion of moral principles and indecency in all of the forms spreading out across America. She has warned that unless America returns to basic principles, our freedoms are in jeopardy. Not so long ago, she spoke out against America's growing tendency to give respectability to homosexuality. And that's where her troubles began."

"Sometimes I think I'm the only one who ever comes out and disagrees with Anita Bryant. In the whole world! I get tired of it occasionally- the repercussions. But if she didn't have one person who disagreed with her, it would be disastrous for her. I can't think of anyone else who gives her a hard time. I know I'm important to Anita- how lonely it is, not having people tell you how it really is and what you really are. She trusts me. "Husbands, love your wives." When I look back at our early years, with their lack of spiritual content, I can hardly compare them to what we know now. Still, even at our worst, we had what I consider a normal family structure: man, wife, children. Nowadays in this world, roles seem to get terribly confused."

"The blatant fear-mongering and cruelty of the Save The Children campaign incensed me when it drew national attention in 1977. I wanted to do something, and it occurred to me that if people were afraid of having a gay role model influencing a child, then there couldn’t be a more important gay role model than having a gay parent. So, in 1979 I found five families raising children in openly gay homes and I asked them to tell their story for a book titled “A Secret I Can’t Tell.”"

"The Florida Legislature has passed the so-called “don’t say gay” bill banning discussions of sexual orientation and gender identify in the early primary years. Hearing about this bill passing brought me back to 1977. In 1977 a law was passed, also in Florida, banning discrimination in housing and employment based on sexuality. This law was an important step toward respecting gay and lesbian civil rights. But after it was passed, Anita Bryant and a group called Save Our Children managed to get the law overturned. This group based their campaign on the slogan, “Homosexuals cannot reproduce, so they must recruit,” and they claimed that the bill would allow gay teachers into schools creating dangerous role models for kids. The Save Our Children campaign stirred up so much fear that they were able to overturn this law banning discrimination. These two anti-gay campaigns, 45 years apart, both imagine a problem where there is none in order to stir up fear and prejudice. In 1977, gay teachers were not a negative influence on their students — it was unlikely that the students even knew that their teachers were gay back when almost everyone was in the closet in their professional life. And primary school teachers aren’t having classroom discussions about sexuality or gender identity. However, if a student has a gay or lesbian parent, or is dealing with gender identity or same sex attraction, teachers will be required to stand by if these students are bullied, rather than try to create some understanding."

"Until the late 1970s, occasional antigay appeals from the right had been like valuable ores left unrefined. But the new right struck pure gold in Anita Bryant. A mother, celebrity singer, former Miss America, and spokeswoman for the Florida Citrus Growers ("A day without orange juice is like a day without sunshine"), the chirpy Bryant was the ideal model for its antigay crusade. She could safely emphasize the supposed danger the homosexual movement posed to families without appearing mean-spirited. In a 1977 fund-raising letter filled with passages underlined in red, she wrote: "Dear friend: I don't hate the homosexuals! But as a mother, I must protect my children from their evil influence. When the homosexuals burn the holy Bible in public, how can I stand by silently?" Like those of a host of her antigay successors, Bryant's fund-raising appeals would fail to identify which gays had burned a Bible or where, much less acknowledge any anger gays might justifiably harbor at what they took as her appropriating Scriptures for her own partisan political purposes."

"Though the times have changed significantly since Bryant's heyday in the 70's, it appears her views have not. In 2021, Bryant's granddaughter Sarah Green told Slate (magazine)|Slate that she came out to her grandmother on her 21st birthday. Bryant reportedly responded by saying homosexuality isn't real. "It's very hard to argue with someone who thinks that an integral part of your identity is just an evil delusion," Green said. Green, who clarified to them.us that she is bisexual, told Slate about her upcoming wedding to her fiancee, a woman, and said she wasn't sure if her grandmother would be attending. "I just kind of feel bad for her," Green added. "And as much as I think she hopes that I will figure things out and come back to God, I kind of hope she'll figure things out." Bryant, now 82, no longer lives in Florida. She returned to her home state of Oklahoma and runs Anita Bryant Ministries International. Neither Bryant nor Green responded to requests for comment."

"I tell you Some are big Some are small Some are in-between Some are yellow belly queers And some of them are mean Some are killers Some are thiefs Some are singers too In fact Aneta Bryant Some act just like you"

"They all Read and Write Fuck all night Clean your fingernails Help you dress Play you chess Lay you down some rails Be your wife Take your life In a jealous rage Who says we don't need them homosexuals"

"Because they... Wash your clothes Clean your cell Help you drain your hose Give you smokes Laugh at jokes Sew up all your clothes Rub your feet Beat your meat Heaven only knows What I'd do without those homosexuals"

"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"

"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."

"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?"

"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."

"In January 1977, Anita and Bob, along with fifty other Miami citizens, stepped out in opposition to a proposed ordinance, which, among other things, allow known practicing homosexuals to teach in private and religious schools. In doing so, they became involved in a dramatic and emotional struggle with militant homosexuals. Immediately the dispute erupted into a full-blown national issue. They thought it was a local issue, although they learned much later it was a broader scope. In fact, at the same time, a national homosexual bill (HR 2998) had been introduced in Congress to declare it a legitimate minority, receiving privileges, quotes for work, and all educational institutions and so on. As a result, of Anita’s Christian convictions she took a stand and this national bill never passed. In her last book, “A New Day” Anita said, “I made a stand not against homosexuals, as persons, but against legislation that would tend to “normalize” and abet their lifestyle, and would especially afford them influence over our children who attended private religious school. I testified along with the others against the legislation before the Dade County Commission. The commissioners were already committed to passing it anyway and did.” At first, I did not want to become involved but forged ahead since many encouraged me in my public stance for a Christian view of home and family and protection of our children. I was asked to lead a referendum, so we formed “Save our Children” to change that unconstitutionally unnecessary law. The gay rights law was voted down by the people, not once, but three years in a row. The news media seized the opportunity – in Time and Newsweek, in television and radio reports and in major newspaper headlines across the nation, the story broke and expanded from referendum campaign into a multitude of complex social issues. It was a controversy that wouldn’t go away."

"Your new day begins when you arrive at the place God intends."

"Expect the relationship between God and you to be something totally unique. It's person-to-Person, and it may sometimes be stormy, but always interesting. And when we find ourselves flat on our faces, trying to look up, that's when the strongest bonds become established. Our crisis becomes His opportunity."

"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."

"I recall soon after my movie to Atlanta in 1984 that the Atlanta Press Club asked me to appear as the "mystery guest" at their Christmas party. Nothing felt scarier than facing a roomful of journalists and their antagonistic questions. I knew I'd have to meet the "enemy" sometime, of course, so why not all of them at once? I asked two friends to accompany me, took a deep breath, and waded into no-man's land. It didn't take long for a talk-show host to corner me and needle me about views obviously at the opposite pole from my own. "Tell me how you feel about abortion," he asked, waving an obvious red flag in my face. "I don't think you want to talk with me about abortion, because I have a very biased viewpoint," I replied. That disconcerted him, but he persisted. "I have a brilliant, handsome, very gifted son, and he's adopted," I told the reporter. "I simply can't be objective about that subject. I do believe that women should control their own bodies, though, but the control needs to be applied before they get pregnant, not after the fact. Once pregnant, a woman is dealing with a child's life and a father's offspring. It isn't too difficult to control one's body by abstaining from sex but, if one chooses not to abstain, one should be prepared for the responsibility of having a child." At once the man's challenging demeanor changed. No longer did he attempt to outwit me conversationally but instead turned into a charming, interested, human individual. We got along fine from that moment on."

"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."