Orange Juice vs. Gay Rights
This Pride Month, I am remembering one of the gay community’s most notorious foes. Anita Bryant, the late cornball singer and orange juice pitchwoman, was a '70s and '80s crusader against gay rights and a horrible person. Her death in late 2024 brought back memories of the bad old days. Even in high school, long before I came out or told myself who I was, I sensed this woman was dangerous. Jane Curtin parodied her on Saturday Night Live , which somehow told me to pay attention. I will never understand why certain pious individuals—Jesse Helms and Carl Rove were amateurs compared with the current administration-would devote so much of their lives, time, and energy to the degradation and denial of others' rights. Bryant was a pioneer in this. Her “Save Our Children” campaign was the first to cast gays as threats to youth, an abhorrent practice that persists in scores of contemporary anti-LGBTQ organizations, not just Moms for Liberty. As a spokeswoman for Florida orange juic...
