Anita Bryant
by Todd Richmond
365Gay.com Features Editor

From adversity comes strength.  And, from Anita Bryant came gay visibility.

Bryant was a runner-up in the 1958 Miss America Contest, a Southern Baptist, a gospel and pop singer, and she was spokesperson for the Florida Citrus Commission. 

In 1977 Miami's Dade County passed one of the world's first gay rights ordinances. It was too much for Bryant who  rose up as a born again Christian mother to launch a campaign for its repeal. 

Bryant used stereotypes and untruths in support of her cause. She said gay people were "wicked and godless" and accused gays of being out to recruit the children of America. In the name of God she stirred up a backlash of hatred and anti-gay violence that spread across North America.

On June 7, 1977, voters in Dade County repealed the ordinance. Protests were mounted by gays and lesbians in Miami, New York, and San Francisco.

It was the first major battle -- and defeat -- in struggle for gay civil rights in United States. It was also the first successful use of "child molestation tactic" by anti- gay forces  and set the pattern of attack for remainder of Seventies and into Eighties.

But, Bryant also is responsible for the first major national press the gay rights movement ever received in the United States.

It put the issue of gay rights in everyone's home.  And, by doing that, set the stage for the successes which followed.

It took 21 years for Dade to re-enact a gay rights bylaw.