Joe Gantz on Anita Bryant

“The Florida Legislature has passed the so-called “don’t say gay” bill banning discussions of sexual orientation and gender identify in the early primary years. Hearing about this bill passing brought me back to 1977. In 1977 a law was passed, also in Florida, banning discrimination in housing and employment based on sexuality. This law was an important step toward respecting gay and lesbian civil rights. But after it was passed, Anita Bryant and a group called Save Our Children managed to get the law overturned. This group based their campaign on the slogan, “Homosexuals cannot reproduce, so they must recruit,” and they claimed that the bill would allow gay teachers into schools creating dangerous role models for kids. The Save Our Children campaign stirred up so much fear that they were able to overturn this law banning discrimination. These two anti-gay campaigns, 45 years apart, both imagine a problem where there is none in order to stir up fear and prejudice. In 1977, gay teachers were not a negative influence on their students — it was unlikely that the students even knew that their teachers were gay back when almost everyone was in the closet in their professional life. And primary school teachers aren’t having classroom discussions about sexuality or gender identity. However, if a student has a gay or lesbian parent, or is dealing with gender identity or same sex attraction, teachers will be required to stand by if these students are bullied, rather than try to create some understanding.”

“The blatant fear-mongering and cruelty of the Save The Children campaign incensed me when it drew national attention in 1977. I wanted to do something, and it occurred to me that if people were afraid of having a gay role model influencing a child, then there couldn’t be a more important gay role model than having a gay parent. So, in 1979 I found five families raising children in openly gay homes and I asked them to tell their story for a book titled “A Secret I Can’t Tell.””