Beauty queen turned singer turned vicious homophobic bitch Anita Bryant, 84, died on Dec. 16. (Am I allowed to say “bitch” in an obit? This is the first time that question has come up). Voted Miss Oklahoma 1958, Bryant became a minor pop star, recording “Till There Was You,” “Paper Roses,” and others, appearing frequently on TV variety shows and becoming spokeswoman for the Florida Citrus Commission in 1969. In 1977 Bryant founded Save Our Children, a group bent on fighting gay rights (most specifically, the right to adopt children, and for gays to work as teachers). “As a mother, I know that homosexuals cannot biologically reproduce children; therefore, they must recruit our children” was one of the comments which resulted in public condemnation and an orange-juice boycott (she was dropped from her spokeswoman gig). Bryant left show business—and vice versa—and moved back to her home state, where she ran Anita Bryant Ministries International. She was publicly pied in the face, divorced her husband (who, being a fundamentalist Baptist, refused to acknowledge it), one of her granddaughters came out as gay, and Bryant spent the rest of her life as a punchline and a warning against bigotry and religious zealousness.
Related Posts
