Anita Bryant Dead. The LGBTQ community outlives another one.

Anita Bryant 

The LGBTQ community has outlasted another one who sought to strip us of our rights to safety, health, and self-determination. 

And this is a big one. 

From Variety:

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. 

We'll skip all of the stuff about her being a beauty pageant queen, singer, and spokesperson. Let's focus on the main reason why she's the subject of a post I wouldn't have missed writing for the world:

 Bryant’s notable public appearances in her less controversial years included singing at both the Democratic and Republican conventions in 1968, being a staple of Bob Hope’s holiday tours for overseas troops for seven straight years, singing “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” at the 1971 Super Bowl, and providing a musical eulogy for President Lyndon Johnson at his 1973 funeral. 

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 The crusade was successful in getting the ordinance repealed that year by a popular vote.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

 Via her highly successful campaign, Bryant popularized the lie that gays are trying to sexually recruit children (sound familiar?): 

 According to a 1977 report in The New York Times, Bryant stated, “Behind the high-sounding appeal against discrimination in jobs and housing, which is not a problem to the ‘closet’ homosexual, they are really asking to be blessed in their abnormal life style… What these people really want, hidden behind obscure legal phrases, is the legal right to propose to our children that there is an acceptable alternate way of life — that being a homosexual or lesbian is not really wrong or illegal.” 

 Also, according to The Hollywood Reporter: 

 “I got involved only because they were asking for special privileges that violated the state law of Florida, not to mention God’s law,” Bryant told Playboy in a 1978 interview. “You know, when I was a child, you didn’t even mention the word homosexual, much less find out what the act was about. You knew it was very bad, but you couldn’t imagine what they tried to do, exactly, in terms of one taking a male role and the other taking a female role. I mean, it was too filthy to think about and you had other things to think about. So when I finally found out all the implications, it was a total revelation for me.” 

As word spread of her crusade, Bryant gathered support from North Carolina Sen. Jesse Helms and Virginia pastor Jerry Falwell, and six months after its passage, the ordinance was repealed by a vote of more than 2 to 1. Bryant then expanded the fight to other cities and states, and with her help, Falwell in 1979 created the Moral Majority movement for religious conservatives that denounced the LGBTQ community, abortion rights supporters and others. 

More from The Hollywood Reporter: 

 Ultimately, Bryant would pay a price. Gay rights activists targeted her and launched a nationwide boycott of Florida orange juice. Bars stopped serving screwdrivers, replacing them with a mixture of vodka and apple juice called the Anita Bryant cocktail. Bryant told Playboy that she lost about a half-million dollars in concert bookings and a deal to host her own TV show as her public appearances became magnets for gay-rights protesters. She also became a punchline for comedians, and the Florida Citrus Commission dumped her in 1980. 

Bryant's career was ruined and she never bounced to the success she had before she became an anti-gay activist. However, Bryant leaves a twofold legacy. 

She demonstrated just how lucrative it was to target LGBTQ people as pedophiles and "groomers." That particular narrative has been in the center of just about every anti-LGBTQ campaign, ordinance, and law. Secondly, we can see the remnants of her smear via people like Chaya Raichik and Nancy Mace and sites like Libs of TikTok and Gays Against Groomers. Bryant may be gone but her stench of bigotry continues to linger. And it's not going away. 

In the coming days, there will be a lot of joy from the LGBTQ community, and folks need to understand where it's coming from. Bryant and her campaign made life hell for gays. It empowered lies, hate, and violence against us.  A lot of people were hurt by what she did but unlike her passing, those stories didn't make the front pages.  Anita Bryant is a textbook example of how Christianity can be weaponized to justify hatred and deception, not to mention the bearing of false witness; something Christians are not supposed to do.

She claimed to have meant well but ultimately Anita Bryant was an ignorant and self-righteous woman who used the Bible to beat people down instead of lifting them up. She was so busy trying to purge what she claimed was the evil in others that she failed to see that the greatest evil of all was coming from herself.

Still, it's also important to remember that she is gone. And we, the LGBTQ community are still here. In her day, she tried to stomp us down but failed. With her passing, Bryant joins Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, Jesse Helms and so many others who felt it was their Chrisian duty to demonize and vilify us. We may be a bit worse for wear, some of us are weary and just downright exhausted but the important thing is that we are here, and we aren't going anywhere. 

 Definitely something for us to keep in mind for 2025.