Anti-Gay Activist’s Tweet Puts So Much in Perspective
Franklin Graham, the anti-gay Christian extremist and 63-year old son of iconic 97-year old evangelical preacher and advisor to presidents, Billy Graham, just posted a tweet that puts so much into perspective and brings so much full circle.
“It was wonderful to see Anita Bryant and her husband today at the #DecisionAmerica Tour rally in Oklahoma City, OK.”
Graham is traveling across the nation on his totally-not-political political tour trying to convince good Christians to vote. Along the way today he met up with the person some might call one of the original anti-gay activists, Anita Bryant.
Now 76, Bryant was well-known to Americans as a singer, a beauty pageant winner in her home state of Oklahoma, and spokesperson for a consortium of Florida orange juice manufacturers.
And, of course, she is best-known as the woman who waged war against gay people in the late 1970’s.
In 1977 she led the successful Christian religious extremist campaign to repeal a Dade County, Florida nondiscrimination ordinance, called Save Our Children. So successful were her efforts in terrorizing LGBT people and their allies that similar ordinances in other states, thanks to Bryant’s work, soon fell too. Then, of course, there was California’s Brigg’s Amendment.
Her partnership with the religious right did tremendous damage to the LGBT community and set equality back decades.
No doubt Franklin Graham truly thought it was wonderful to see Anita Bryant again. Her anti-gay hate is legendary.
Two peas in an anti-gay pod.Â