LEAGUE OF THEMSELVES - ANITA BRYANT

 

ANITA BRYANT

From Wikipedia:

Anita Jane Bryant (born March 25, 1940) is an American singer, former Miss Oklahoma beauty pageant winner, and outspoken critic of homosexuality. She scored four Top 40 hits in the United States in the late 1950s and early 1960s, including "Paper Roses", which reached #5. 

She later became known for her strong views against homosexuality and for her campaigning in 1977 to repeal a local ordinance in Dade County, Florida, that prohibited discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, an involvement that significantly damaged her popularity and career in show business.

Bryant became one of the first persons to be publicly "pied" as a political act (in her case, on television), in Des Moines, in 1977. Bryant quipped "At least it's a fruit pie", making a pun on the derogatory term of "fruit" for a gay man. While covered in pie, she began to pray to God to forgive the activist "for his deviant lifestyle" before bursting into tears as the cameras kept rolling. Bryant's husband, after promising not to retaliate, later took another pie and threw it at the protesters who had pied his wife. 

By this time, gay activists had ensured the boycott on Florida orange juice had become more prominent and it was supported by many celebrities, including Barbra Streisand, Bette Midler, Paul Williams, John Waters, Carroll O'Connor,Mary Tyler Moore, Linda Lavin, and Jane Fonda. 

In 1978, Bryant and Bob Green told the story of their campaign in the book, At Any Cost. Even many years after her campaign, the gay community continued to regard her name as synonymous with bigotry and homophobia.

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