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Anita Bryant, famous anti-gay singer and crusader, dead at 84


Anita Bryant, former Miss Oklahoma singer, Grammy-nominated singer and one-time face of orange juice, who became known over the second half of her life for her opposition to gay rights, has died . She was 84.

Bryant died Dec. 16 at her home in Edmond, Okla., according to a statement her family sent to The Oklahoman news site Thursday. The family did not list a cause of death.

At the height of her visibility, she was a polarizing figure, embraced as a poster girl by the religious right and criticized by those in show business for her campaign against gay rights.

Bryant was a resident of Barnsdell, Okla., who started singing at a young age, and was just 12 when she hosted her own local television show. She was named Miss Oklahoma in 1958 and soon began a successful recording career, her hit singles including Until you were, paper roses and Little Corner of the World. A lifelong Christian, she received two Grammy nominations for Best Sacred Performance and one for Best Spiritual Performance, for the album Anita Bryant … Naturally.

In the late 1960s, she was one of the entertainers who accompanied Bob Hope on his USO tours for troops overseas, performed at the White House and performed at national conventions for both Democrats and Republican in 1968. She also became a prominent commercial speaker. , her ads for Florida orange juice feature the tag line, “A day without orange juice is a day without sunshine.”

A legacy of brutal anti-gay rights continues

But in the late 1970s, Bryant's life and career took a very new direction. Unhappy with the cultural changes of the time, she led a successful campaign to repeal an ordinance in Miami-Dade County in Florida that would have prohibited discrimination based on sexual orientation.

A woman sits at a table with a microphone on, her face covered in the sticky residue from a pie. She has bruises all over her face and on her collar. A man is sitting next to him, eyes closed, his arm around her shoulder.
Bryant has a piece thrown at a press conference on October 14, 1977, in Des Moines, Iowa. (The Associated Press)

In an interview with Playboy in 1978, Bryant said that she was moved to action because she believed that those who wanted the right not to lose their jobs simply because of their sexuality were thus to request special benefits that violated Florida state law, not to. reference to God's law.”

During a televised press conference in 1977 in Iowa about her crusade against homosexuality, a pie was thrown in her face by gay rights activist Thom Higgins.

“At least it was a piece of fruit,” Bryant joked, then began praying for Higgins before bursting into tears.

“So always for bigots,” said Higgins, who also mentioned the term gay pride, before being taken out.

The pieing was one of the early events when someone was confronted as a political protest, and it would become one of the most enduring moments in Bryant's life.

A large crowd protests in a black and white picture. They have the marks of four faces above them. Another sign says "Once the Jews. Then the Blacks. Now the Gays. Get Off Our Backs".
In this June 26, 1977, file photo, demonstrators carry signs of, from left, Adolf Hitler, Bryant, the Ku Klux Klan and Idi Amin, chanting 'Human Rights Now,' at Annual Gay Freedom Day March in San Francisco. (The Associated Press)

Although the campaign was successful, it also cemented Bryant in the public mind as a religious crusader bent on gay rights, rather than the entertainer he once was. She became a punchline on shows like Saturday Night Livethe television series Maudeand The Carol Burnett Showwhere Burnett dressed up as Bryant for a skit in which she sang and served orange juice to drag queens and actors dressed as LGBTQ+ icons.

With the support of Rev. Jerry Falwell among others, Bryant continued to oppose gay rights throughout the country and became the object of much criticism in return.

Activists organized boycotts against products she endorsed, designed T-shirts mocking her and called her a drink – a variation on the screwdriver that replaced orange juice with apple juice. The boycott nearly cost her contract with the Florida Citrus Commission, which ultimately refused to renew her contract in 1980, and she lost other opportunities amid the controversy, including a contract for her own TV show. to have

Her entertainment career declined, her marriage to her first husband Bob Green broke up, and she subsequently filed for bankruptcy.

A woman is sitting on a chair in this black and white photo. She is posing for the camera. There is a lamp on a table behind her. She is wearing a dress with short sleeves and a small collar, a sort of peasant blouse style.
Anita Bryant at her home in Miami Beach, Fla., June 7, 1978. (Kathy A. Willens/The Associated Press)

In Florida, her legacy was challenged and continued. The ban against gender discrimination was renewed in 1998.

“She won the campaign, but she lost the battle in time,” Tom Lander, an LGBTQ+ activist and board member of the advocacy group Safe Schools South Florida, told The Associated Press on Friday.

But Lander also recognized the “parental rights” movement, which has recently banned wave books and anti-LGBTQ+ laws in Florida led by conservative groups such as Moms For Liberty, whose roots were in star -Kronic knowledge of Bryant's release.

“It's so connected to what's happening today,” Lander said.

Bryant spent the latter part of her life in Oklahoma, where she headed Anita Bryant Ministries International. Her second husband, NASA test astronaut Charles Hobson Dry, died last year. According to her family's statement, she is survived by four children, two schoolgirls and seven grandchildren.



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