Miami-Dade ja vu: a quarter century after Anita Bryant's "Save Our Children" campaign, Miami-Dade voters are again squaring off over gay rights. (Politics).

Publication: The Advocate (The national gay & lesbian newsmagazine)

Publication Date: 03-SEP-02

Bookmark this article Print this article Link to this article Email this article Digg It! Add to del.icio.us RSS

COPYRIGHT 2002 Liberation Publications, Inc.

The year was 1977, the place South Florida's Dade County. The world's attention was focused on gay rights, with singer and orange juice pitch-woman Anita Bryant leading a bizarre "Save Our Children" crusade to overturn a law protecting gay men and lesbians against discrimination. And when voters overwhelmingly repealed the ordinance, Bryant danced a jig, and her husband, Bob Green, kissed her for photographers. "This is what heterosexuals do, fellas," Green said.

The defeat was a watershed, galvanizing the gay rights movement nationally to organize for future battles while convincing far-right activists that they could raise money and gain power by fighting gay rights. It wasn't until 1998 that commissioners of what is now Miami-Dade County reinstated the antidiscrimination protections. Now, 25 years after Bryant led her antigay crusaders to victory, the religious right has again forced a referendum in the hope of repealing the county's ban on discrimination based on sexual orientation in employment, housing, public accommodations, and credit and finance....

Read the full article for free courtesy of your local library.