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Anita Bryant, shown here on May 1977, was once a popular hit singer in the early 1960's who is now best known as an outspoken opponent of gay rights.
The celebrity was infamously pied in the face at a press conference.
Anita Bryant, the evangelical Christian who rallied against LGBTQ+ rights, died last month at 84, according to an obituary shared by her family.
The obituary states Bryant died on December 16, 2024, at her home in Edmond Oklahoma.
Before her anti-LGBTQ+ positions made her a favorite of religious conservatives, Bryant was known for appearances in commercials, her time appearing at Bob Home's holiday tours for overseas troops, and for singing "The Battle Hymn of the Republica, at the Super Bowl in 1971.
Bryant, born in Oklahoma in 1940, was a beauty queen and a best-selling pop star before returning to her Christian roots in the 1970s. She became an antigay activist in 1977, when she launched the successful effort to repeal an antidiscrimination ordinance in Miami-Dade County. Miami-Dade County's government adopted an ordinance banning employment and housing discrimination based on sexual orientation, making it one of the first municipalities to do so. Bryant, who had testified against the ordinance, was outraged at its passage and led a campaign dubbed "Save Our Children" to persuade voters to repeal it.
Along the way, Bryant became a darling of her fellow conservative Christians and an enemy of gay people and their allies; at one point, an activist threw a pie in her face. Miami-Dade citizens did repeal the ordinance, with over 70 percent voting to do so. The city-county government restored the ordinance in 1998 and added gender identity to it in 2014.
She also tried and failed in 1978 to pass the Briggs Initiative, which sought to fire gay teachers in California.
This story is developing...
