WE'RE PRO-RETRO :

Bryant Legacy Resurfaces in Fla.: Gay Groups Work to Defeat Bid to Repeal Rights Ordinance (Manuel Roig-Franzia, September 7, 2002, Washington Post)

Anita Bryant in all her frilly, 1970s bouffant glory smiles down from a record cover propped on a corner file cabinet of the election headquarters of the gay rights group SAVE Dade.

Bryant is a mythic and reviled figure in this room, the orange juice spokeswoman and beauty queen who led a successful campaign 25 years ago to repeal a ground-breaking ordinance that prohibited discrimination against gays and lesbians in Dade County.

The ordinance was narrowly restored in 1998 by county commissioners, but it is once again the subject of a fiercely contested repeal effort that will be decided by voters Tuesday. The election bears enormous practical and symbolic importance to national gay rights groups, which have sent dozens of volunteers to Miami in hopes of defeating the measure and discouraging repeals in more than 200 cities and counties that have laws prohibiting discrimination against gays and lesbians.

"It's sort of our version of the Freedom Riders," said Lorri Jean, executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, which has contributed volunteers and $100,000 to SAVE Dade. "Anita Bryant wreaked havoc all over the country. We wanted to show the country that not only has Miami changed, but the world has changed."

Bryant, who lives in Tennessee, hasn't been involved in this summer's Miami-Dade County repeal fight. But reminders of her 1977 campaign are everywhere.

At times, it seems gay rights activists here are battling the ghosts of Bryant's long-ago "Save Our Children" campaign as much as the conservative Christian groups who have sponsored the current repeal. A flier in SAVE Dade's office urges volunteers to "Undo Anita! Homophobia is soooo retro."

Because homosexuality is a moral choice rather than an immutable characteristic (like race or gender) it seems entirely fair to allow people to engage in discrimination against those who indulge in such behavior. Posted by Orrin Judd at September 8, 2002 7:00 AM