Anita Bryant, a singer who leveraged her celebrity platform to fight against gay rights in Miami-Dade County in the 1970s, died at her home in Oklahoma on Dec. 16 at the age of 84.
Bryant was initially known for her music, delivering three hit songs to the top 20 list in the US in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Throughout the ’60s, she performed for American service members abroad and at political events — and in 1971 she sang during halftime of Super Bowl V. She even starred in television commercials on behalf of the Florida Citrus Commission and several corporate brands.
But her focus — and her reputation — took a dark turn when she became deeply invested in Miami-Dade County Commission’s 1977 ordinance barring employment and housing discrimination against individuals on the basis of sexual orientation. She aggressively opposed the ordinance by peddling baseless lies about gay people, falsely accusing them of targeting children.
“The ordinance condones immorality and discriminates against my children’s rights to grow up in a healthy, decent community,” Bryant insisted.
After the ordinance passed early in the year, Bryant became the face of the newly-created “Save Our Children” campaign, which sought to nix the new ordinance. The “Save Our Children” distributed fundraising cards to people and encouraged them to fill in their information “to help you bring America back to God and morality. Please send me all issues of your Protect America’s Children Newsletter.”
In one television interview posted on YouTube, Bryant states, “Just biologically, God made mothers so that we could reproduce. Homosexuals cannot reproduce biologically, but they have to reproduce by recruiting our children.”
Bryant mobilized enough opposition to trigger a county-wide referendum in June. Voters easily repealed the ordinance by a 2-1 margin. (It was restored two decades later and gender identity protections were added a decade ago.)
“All America and all the world will hear what the people have said, and with God’s continued help, we will prevail in our fight to repeal similar laws throughout the nation which attempt to legitimize a lifestyle that is both perverse and dangerous,” Bryant said, according to the New York Times.
Bryant also waded into related causes elsewhere, including in California, where state voters ultimately rejected a ballot proposal known as the Briggs Initiative, which would have banned gay and lesbian individuals from employment at public schools in the state. But other states, like Oklahoma and Arkansas, were successful in enacting such policies.
The anti-gay activism abruptly destroyed Bryant’s once-promising career. Decades after Bryant faded from the spotlight, her reputation has continued to live on in the LGBTQ community. One of the most historic and oft-mentioned moments of that era came came on Oct. 14 of 1977 when Bryant went to Iowa to perform and discuss her homophobic crusade. She was speaking at a press conference there when Thom Higgins, a gay activist, approached her and pushed a pie into her face.
“At least it’s a fruit pie,” Bryant said before calling on Higgins to be “delivered from his deviant lifestyle.”
In 2021, Bryant’s out granddaughter, Sarah Green, recalled coming out to her on her 21st birthday. Green said Bryant told her that homosexuality was invented by the devil and that God would help her become straight.
“My partner and I have talked a lot about whether we want to invite her to our wedding,” Green said on a Slate podcast. “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. I don’t know if she would be offended if I didn’t invite her. I really genuinely don’t know if she will come or not. I guess I’ll just say that I don’t hate my grandma. I just kind of feel bad for her. And I think as much as she hopes that I will figure things out and come back to God, I kind of hope that she’ll figure things out.”
