anita

Early career

A member of the Southern Baptist church, she is remembered for campaigning in the 1970s to repeal a local ordinance in Miami, Florida that prohibited discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.

Singing from the age of two, Bryant became Miss Oklahoma in 1958 and was a second runner-up in the 1959 Miss America beauty pageant. She had three big pop hits: "'Til There Was You" (1959); "Paper Roses" (1960) (successfully covered 13 years later by Marie Osmond); and "In My Little Corner of the World" (1960). In 1960, she married Bob Green, a Miami disc jockey, with whom she eventually raised four children. She became a spokeswoman for the Florida Citrus Commission in 1969, and nationally televised commercials featured her singing "Come to the Florida Sunshine tree", and opining that "A day without orange juice is like a day without sunshine".

She became widely recognizable, doing advertisements for Coca-Cola, Kraft Foods, Holiday Inn, and Tupperware. She sang "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" during the graveside services for Lyndon Johnson in 1973, and performed the National Anthem at Super Bowl III in 1969.

Anti-gay efforts

In 1977, Florida's Dade County (now Miami-Dade County) passed a human-rights ordinance that prohibited discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. In response to this, Bryant led a highly publicized campaign to repeal the ordinance. The campaign was waged based on "Christian beliefs regarding the sinfulness of homosexuality and the perceived threat of “homosexual recruitment” of children and child molestation."

Indeed, the concerns over homosexual recruitment of children inspired the name of Bryant's political organization, Save Our Children. Among Bryant's assertions during the campaign were “As a mother, I know that homosexuals cannot biologically reproduce children; therefore, they must recruit our children” and “If gays are granted rights, next we'll have to give rights to prostitutes and to people who sleep with St. Bernards and to nail biters.” On June 7, 1977, Bryant's campaign led to a repeal of the anti-discrimination ordinance by a margin of 69 to 31 percent.

The following day, Bryant stated, “In victory, we shall not be vindictive. We shall continue to seek help and change for homosexuals, whose sick and sad values belie the word ‘gay’ which they pathetically use to cover their unhappy lives.”

Victory and defeat

In the aftermath, legislation was passed outlawing adoption by gays and lesbians in the state of Florida and Bryant led several more campaigns around the country to repeal local anti-discrimination ordinances.

Dade County, in 1998, repudiated Bryant's successful campaign of 20 years earlier, and re-authorized an anti-discrimination ordinance protecting individuals from discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation by a 7 to 6 margin. In 2002, a ballot initiative to repeal the 1998 law called amendment 14 was voted down by 56% of the voters. The statute forbidding adoptions by gay persons in Florida, however, remains law.

Anita Bryant's political success galvanized her opponents. She became one of the first persons to be "pied" (i.e., hit in the face with a pie) as a political act, in Des Moines in 1977. Gay activists organized a juice boycott, Many celebrities including Barbra Streisand, Bette Midler, Paul Williams and Jane Fonda publicly supported the boycott as well.

Career decline and bankruptcy

The fallout from her political activism had a devastating effect on her entertainment career. Her contract with the Florida Citrus Commission also was allowed to lapse because of the negative publicity generated by her political campaigns, the resulting boycott of Florida orange juice, and, at least reportedly, because of her divorce.

Her marriage to Bob Green failed at that time and in 1980 she divorced him. She married her second husband, Charlie Hobson Dry, in 1990, and they have tried to reestablish her career in a series of small venues. Commercial success has been elusive, and they have left behind them a series of unpaid employees and creditors. They filed for bankruptcy in Arkansas (1997) and in Tennessee (2001).

Pop culture references

• Bryant's visit to Flint, Michigan, is featured in the 1989 Michael Moore documentary film Roger & Me.
• A parody of her and her campaign appeared as "The Sinister S.O.O.F.I." ("Save Our Offspring from Indecency") in Steve Gerber's Howard the Duck.
• David Allan Coe recorded a song called "F**k Anita Bryant" off of his 1978 album "Nothing Sacred"
• She was also mentioned by first name in the song Moral Majority on the album In God We Trust, Inc., by Dead Kennedys.
• In Jimmy Buffett's song Manaña, he hopes "Anita Bryant never ever does one of my songs."

Songs

• Paper Roses
• The Wedding (song)
• In My Little Corner Of The World
• In The Chapel,In The Moonlight
• Moon River
• My Heart Cries For You
• Till there was You

External links

• Image of Anita Bryant in the 1970s (available for public use from the State Archives of Florida)
• St.Petersburg Times article