Anti-gay activist Anita Bryant got
another (well deserved) pie in her face.
Granddaughter Sarah Green talked about her relationship with the notorious antigay crusader on a recent episode of Slate’s podcast One Year, hosted by Josh Levin and focusing on 1977, a year when the nation seemed on the verge of great change.
Bryant, a beauty queen and pop singer, was a spokeswoman for Florida orange growers in the 1970s when she gained new fame with her opposition to gay rights. Miami-Dade County’s government adopted an ordinance in 1977 banning employment and housing discrimination based on sexual orientation, making it one of the first municipalities to do so. Bryant, who had testified against the ordinance, was outraged at its passage and led a campaign dubbed “Save Our Children” to persuade voters to repeal it.
Along the way, Bryant became a darling of her fellow conservative Christians and an enemy of gay people and their allies; at one point, an activist threw a pie in her face. Miami-Dade citizens did repeal the ordinance, with over 70 percent voting to do so. The city-county government restored the ordinance in 1998 and added gender identity to it in 2014.
The episode deals with the fight over gay rights in Miami-Dade generally and Bryant’s crusade against the ordinance. Toward the end, Green talks about her relationship with Bryant, who was a doting grandmother; Green says she once thought Bryant didn't really hate LGBTQ+ people, but she started to look at her grandmother differently when Green realized as a teen that she herself was gay.