Skip to content
Search AI Powered

Latest Stories

Famed Homophobe Anita Bryant Gets Ultimate Karma After Granddaughter Gets Engaged To A Woman

Famed Homophobe Anita Bryant Gets Ultimate Karma After Granddaughter Gets Engaged To A Woman
Bettmann/Contributor/Getty Images

For people of a certain age, there is no more famous--or infamous--homophobe than evangelical Christian singer and television personality Anita Bryant.

A 1970s beauty queen, singer and television personality who became a passionate public crusader against gay people, who she claimed were pedophiles, Bryant is best remembered for getting a pie thrown in her face by an LGBTQ-rights activist during a 1977 press conference.


And now, all these years later, the 81-year-old bigot is getting another figurative pie to the face.

Her granddaughter, Sarah Green, is marrying a woman.

Guess all of Bryant's activism failed, huh?

Green recently spoke publicly about her experience coming out at the age of 21 to her grandmother, who responded by telling her that homosexuality is a delusion created by the devil and that if she focused on loving God, He would turn her straight. Green also said that she and her fiancé are still debating over whether to invite Bryant to the wedding.

But while many of us would be angry with our family member in this situation, Green feels something different for her deluded grandmother: pity.

"I just kind of feel bad for her. And I think as much as she hopes that I will figure things out and come back to God, I kind of hope that she'll figure things out."

Green's discussion of Bryant was part of a recent episode of the Slate podcast "One Year" focusing on the year 1977, when Bryant's anti-gay campaigns reached a fever pitch.

That year, Miami-Dade County passed a landmark ordinance protecting LGBTQ people from employment and housing discrimination, the first municipality in the U.S. to do so.

Bryant, who was the spokesperson for the Florida citrus industry at the time, launched a campaign she called "Save Our Children" to overturn the law on the basis of a claim that gay people are pedophiles and should not be allowed to hold certain jobs, like teaching in schools. Naturally, Bryant became the darling of the Christian right at the time, and reviled by more right-minded people.

So much so that Bryant is no longer remembered for her Top 40 music or television career but rather for the moment when gay-rights activist Tom Higgins threw a pie in her face on national television.

youtu.be

In response, Bryant quipped "At least it's a fruit pie" before breaking down in sobs and praying that Higgins be "delivered from his deviant lifetstyle." All while, you know, scraping pie off her face.

Giphy

The news of Green's engagement of course sparked lots of conversation on Twitter, including by people like writer Dan Savage who recalled in a tweet thread the trauma of having to listen to Bryant's anti-LGBTQ hatred as a young closeted gay person.


For many others on Twitter, the schadenfreude towards Bryant was deep and real.











Though Bryant succeeded in her fight to repeal the Miami gay-rights ordinance, her anti-LGBTQ crusade was ultimately unsuccessful—she is widely cited as having triggered a leveling-up of the LGBTQ rights movement that directly led to the advances we know today.

More from News/lgbtq

Donald Trump; Martin Luther King Jr.
Taylor Hill/FilmMagic/Getty Images; Jack Sheahan/The Boston Globe via Getty Images

Trump Ripped After Forcing National Parks To Drop Free Entry On MLK Day And Juneteenth For Infuriating Reason

President Donald Trump was criticized after the National Park Service announced it will be dropping Martin Luther King Jr. Day and Juneteenth for next year's calendar of free-entry days and adding Trump's birthday, which happens to fall on Flag Day, on June 14.

Last month, the Department of the Interior unveiled changes to what it now calls its “resident-only patriotic fee-free days,” expanding the calendar to include new dates like the Fourth of July weekend and President Theodore Roosevelt’s birthday, while dropping others that had honored the department itself, including the Bureau of Land Management’s anniversary.

Keep ReadingShow less
Screenshot of Juanita Broaddrick's tweet overlayed against a picture of the J. Crew sign
@atensnut/X; Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images

MAGA Is Melting Down Over A Pink J. Crew Sweater For Men—And Our Eyes Can't Roll Hard Enough

MAGA fans are melting down over a $168 men's sweater from J. Crew with a fair-isle collar, claiming, in yet another example of the idiocy of the culture wars, that only liberals would actually wear it.

We know what you're thinking... Really?!

Keep ReadingShow less
Robert Garcia; Marjorie Taylor Greene
WWHL/Bravo; Daniel Heuer/AFP via Getty Images

Dem Rep. Has An Idea For A New Line Of Work For MTG After She Leaves Congress—And It Would Certainly Be Something

California Democratic Representative Robert Garcia was elected in November 2022 and even before being sworn in, he was locking horns with one-time MAGA darling and Georgia Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene.

For years, MTG was best known as the QAnon conspiracy theory-spewing, State of the Union heckling, crossfit hyping, Trump ride-or-dying, anti-LGBTQ+ racist MAGA minion from Georgia.

Keep ReadingShow less
Donald Trump Jr.
Fayez Nureldine/AFP via Getty Images

Don Jr. Sparks Outrage After Startup Company He Backed Scores Massive Contract With Pentagon

Donald Trump Jr. is facing criticism after The Financial Times reported that Vulcan Elements, a startup he backed, scored a $620 million government contract with the Department of Defense.

The company said the deal falls under a broader $1.4 billion collaboration with the federal government and ReElement Technologies aimed at scaling up U.S. magnet production and strengthening the domestic supply chain.

Keep ReadingShow less

People Describe The Deepest Internet 'Rabbit Hole' They've Ever Fallen Down

Who amongst us hasn't wasted HOURS of life surfing the web for things we couldn't help being intrigued by?

Going on the internet for one quick look at a sale, then staying up until sunrise trying to uncover a 50-year-old unsolved murder mystery is totally normal.

Keep ReadingShow less