The Pop Corporation

Anita Bryant may have been nominated for Grammys, landed the gong of being Miss Oklahoma and had a number of hit singles, but that’s not why she’s remembered, now that she’s dead.

Bryant was an outspoken campaigner AGAINST gay rights in the USA, under the thin premise of ‘protecting’ children and the usual hackneyed talking points of American Christian faith. A statement regarding her death, from her family, says: “May Anita’s memory and her faith in eternal life through Christ comfort all who embraced her.”

She sang at the White House for Lyndon B Johnson’s presidency, and performed for both sides of the aisle (before anyone assumes anything about the political parties in the US), and was a spokesperson for Florida Citrus, peddling orange juice.

Thanks to her involvement with orange juice, her awful views against the queer community were the reason that LGBTQ+ bars stopped serving screwdriver cocktails. Bryant became lead the anti-gay ‘Save Our Children’ campaign, looking to repeal an ordinance in Florida that prohibited discrimination based on sexual orientation.

She told Playboy: “I got involved only because they were asking for special privileges that violated the state law of Florida, not to mention God’s law.”

This saw her reportedly losing around $500,000 in concert revenue, cost her a deal to host her own TV, and garnered notoriety by being one of the first high profile people to be hit in the face with a custard pie as a political protest. Florida Citrus dropped her, her husband left her and eventually, even Conservatives deserted her.

She opposed gay couples adopting, she believed that gay people ‘recruited’ children, and included darker claims about molestation to boot.

She said: “What these people really want, hidden behind obscure legal phrases, is the legal right to propose to our children that theirs is an acceptable alternate way of life. I will lead such a crusade to stop it as this country has not seen before.” She added: “The recruitment of our children is absolutely necessary for the survival and growth of homosexuality… for since homosexuals cannot reproduce, they must recruit, must freshen their ranks.”

A vile individual, aided and abetted by the gruesome Jerry Falwell who between them, popularised the idea that if we allow gay marriage, then soon, people will be able to marry their pets.

Celebrities who joined the protests against Bryant included Jane Fonda, Paul Williams, Vincent Price (who joked to Johnny Carson that Oscar Wilde’s ‘A Woman of No Importance’ referred to her), and the gay community continually used her name as a byword for all things bigoted and homophobic.

Of course, when times got hard for Bryant, the hardline conservatives ditched her too. The fact that she was a divorced woman meant she was guilty of sin herself, to the point where her marriage to Bob Green wasn’t recognised by him, because his fundamental beliefs did not recognise divorce and in fact, they were still married ‘in God’s eyes’.

David Allen Coe even did a fiercely satirical song called ‘Fuck Aneta Briant’ (not for the feint of heart, gee whizz) and Elton John, when criticised for touring Russia in 1979, said: “I wouldn’t say I won’t tour in America because I can’t stand Anita Bryant.”

We’ll finish with the fact that Bryant portrayed as a character at drag shows across the United States of America, which she’ll be able to see no doubt, from down there.