An Interview* with Anita Bryant, Anti-Gay Orange Juice Influencer
“Battle Hymn of the Republic” Singer Talks To Late Michigan From 1977
The 70s are back, baby! Department stores are selling flared pants, and Florida’s enacting anti-LGBTQ legislation.
With a fresh wave of anti-trans and anti-gay bills across the country – and a 6-3 conservative Supreme Court majority that will likely uphold them – I wanted to get a sense of what to prepare for in the years ahead. I knew the best person to talk to would be singer and activist Anita Bryant, for two reasons:
Previously known as the spokesperson for Florida orange juice, Anita Bryant gained national notoriety in 1977 when her organization, Save Our Children, Inc., successfully defeated a Dade County ordinance that would have protected gays and lesbians against discrimination in jobs, housing, and public accommodations.
During a Kiwanis Club debate on the ordinance, Anita Bryant spent half of her allotted 12 minutes singing “Battle Hymn of the Republic.”1 If that didn’t anticipate the direction the Republican Party would take in the decades ahead, I don’t know what did.
Being 82 years old, Anita Bryant doesn’t give interviews anymore. Fortunately, I was able to acquire a used copy of her 1977 book, The Anita Bryant Story: The Survival of Our Nation’s Families and the Threat of Militant Homosexuality2, and it pretty much follows today’s standard talking points.
Every answer below is word-for-word from Anita’s book. If it sounds familiar, please donate to the Protect and Defend Trans Youth Fund or the ACLU in Florida and Alabama.
Late Michigan: Thank you, Anita, for sitting down to do this interview.
Anita Bryant: You know, I opened the mail one day after we became involved in Save Our Children, Inc., and there before my eyes was the most hideous thing I had ever seen – a picture of two nude men committing an act of homosexuality.
LM: Hmm. Okay. Well, I was hoping we could start a little bit earlier. Why did you oppose Dade County’s civil rights ordinance?
AB: It’s admirable to be tolerant and sensitive to people’s civil rights, but what the militant homosexuals are seeking cannot be classified as legitimate civil rights. Unfortunately far too many people, women especially, think of the homosexual as… a limp wristed type who wouldn’t hurt a fly.
LM: Do you know the Cate Blanchett meme?
AB: The what?
LM: Nevermind. You were saying something about gays being limp?
Those of us who were in the thick of the fight in Dade County know better. It was a battle – no doubt about it – but we were fighting the issue. Never once did we attack people, politicians, the five Metro Commissioners, or those who opposed us.
LM: What about the language you’ve used to describe gay people? My notes have “homosexual recruiters,” “perverted,” “garbage”–
AB: The media misquoted me, saying that I called homosexuals garbage. That was not what I said. As I talked about our concern for the health and diet of our children and other people’s children, I said, “If they are exposed to homosexuality, I might as well feed them garbage.” I think there is a difference.
LM: Ah. So it’s not that you think that we’re garbage. It’s that you think children knowing about gay people has the same adverse affects on them as feeding them radioactive Lunchables.
AB: Yes.
LM: I’m glad you made the distinction. You keep complaining that the ‘liberal media’ has made you out to be a villain. What do you mean by that?
AB: The premiere performance of the new “Laugh In” show was another prime example of the show-biz conspiracy to ridicule and discredit me. Because I dared to speak out for straight and normal America, I have had my career threatened. I have had my First Amendment freedom of speech abridged.
LM: You’re referring to the television show you were going to produce with … *checks notes* ... the Singer Sewing Machine Company, which Singer pulled from production amid the negative press.
AB: It destroys the dream that I have had since I was a child, a dream to have a television series of my own, to entertain and present wholesome subjects to my fellow Americans – the kind of wholesome entertainment Bob Hope, his group, and I provided for lonesome American veterans in the jungles and throughout the world.
LM: We call that “cancel culture” now. It doesn’t really mean anything, but you can use it for whatever you’re trying to publish an op-ed about.
AB: The very thing that happened to us in Miami is feared by many citizens of this land. Rather than face those consequences, they have chosen to remain silent while the more vocal radical groups have all but taken over in high places, both locally and nationally.
LM: Can you give an example of what you would consider overreach by gay activists?
AB: Time magazine (August 29, 1977) reported that in July “...some 100 gay activists converged on a Manhattan bar where an ax was suspended from the wall with a wooden plaque beneath it labeled FAIRY SWATTER.” The gays insisted on its destruction.
LM: That’s what you’re going with.
AB: *nods*
LM: I guess now’s a good time to roll the footage of you getting pied in the face.
LM: There’s an entire chapter in your book titled “Homosexual Teachers: Are They Dangerous Role Models?” Why are you so concerned about gay teachers? Have they all pied you in the face?
AB: First, public approval of admitted homosexual teachers could encourage more homosexuality by inducing pupils to look upon it as an acceptable life-style.
LM: I’m not sure that’s how it—
AB: And second, a particularly deviant-minded teacher could sexually molest children.
LM: Huh. Here in 2022, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’s press secretary just said the same thing.
AB: The Los Angeles Police Department recently reported that 25,000 boys 17 years old or younger in that city alone have been recruited into a homosexual ring to provide sex for adult male customers.
LM: I’m looking at census data from 1980, and 25,000 boys would be 6% of all boys under 18 in the City of Los Angeles. You’re saying that for every classroom with 15 boys, at least one of them has gone missing because of this “homosexual ring”?
AB: The Los Angeles Police Department reported it.
LM: Well, far be it for me to question the integrity of the 1970s Los Angeles Police Department. But how would you respond to critics who say you’re spreading lies with deadly consequences – all while claiming to be just a humble, apolitical housewife?
AB [standing up to sing]: Oh, mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord–
LM: You know what? Let’s wrap up. You were just in New York for Good Morning America. Were you able to enjoy the city at all?
AB: Following that program we went back to the Warwick Hotel in New York City where, upon arriving the night before, we had realized we hadn’t been there since our wedding night. It brought back beautiful memories, and Bob and I needed that.
LM: So you and your husband boned at the Warwick Hotel.
AB: No comment.
This story courtesy of the first episode in Slate’s “One Year: 1977” podcast.
I’m squeamish about burning books, but one time I drowned a book by running it through the dishwasher before throwing it away. I’ll probably do the same with this one.