Anita Bryant, the evangelical Christian who led a charge against LGBTQ+ rights, died last month at 84, according to an obituary shared by her family, reports The Advocate.
She became an antigay activist in 1977 when she launched the successful effort to repeal an anti-discrimination ordinance in Miami-Dade County.
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.
It emerged in 2021 that Bryant’s granddaughter Sarah Green was gay and engaged to marry a woman. Green talked about her relationship with the notorious antigay crusader on an episode of Slate‘s podcast One Year, hosted by Josh Levin and focusing on 1977, a year when the nation seemed on the verge of great change, reports The Advocate.
Green told Levin she had no intention of coming out to Bryant, but she was spurred to do so on her 21st birthday. Bryant sang “Happy Birthday” to her granddaughter on the phone and told her that if she had faith, the right man would come along. “And I just snapped and was like, ‘I hope that he doesn’t come along, because I’m gay, and I don’t want a man to come along,'” Green recalled.
Bryant responded by telling Green that homosexuality is a delusion invented by the devil and that her granddaughter should focus on loving God, because that would make her realize she’s straight.
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