Honking windbag Nancy Grace had some curious thoughts to share yesterday about Anita Bryant. Younger readers might not recognize Anita’s name, but she was a notorious antigay activist during the 1970s.
The subject came up during a conversation about the guy who punched Brad Pitt at a red carpet event. Grace’s outraged conversation meandered here and there, touching on stalkers and surprise attacks on public figures. She also wears a hair clip that makes it look like someone tried to staple her bangs in place.
“Do you remember Anita Bryant?” Grace asks, describing Bryant as a beautiful singer. Apparently it’s Grace who doesn’t really remember her, because she leaves out the quality for which Bryant is most noted: campaigning to overturn an anti-discrimination ordinance in Florida. “As a mother, I know that homosexuals cannot biologically reproduce children; therefore, they must recruit our children,” she said at the time.
After she was successful in Florida, she led similar campaigns in various other states. It took 20 years to start undoing the damage she caused.
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At one point, she was hit in the face with a pie as retribution from the gay community. This might not have been the most constructive way to deal with her, but it was clearly an attention-getter. People remember it to this day — but apparently Grace is a little fuzzy on the details.
“She was speaking on some issue dear to her heart,” Grace says. “I don’t understand that. Why did that guy do that?” and then she kept repeating, “why would you do this?” as if it’s some kind of mystery that nobody can ever unravel. Her guest, a psychoanalyst who also seems to have forgotten her history, explains that the attacker was envious of Bryant’s beautiful voice.
The real question is “why would Anita Bryant be so cruel and hateful to millions of gays and lesbians?” … to be followed up with, “why did nobody at Nancy Grace’s show take her aside to explain history to her?”
Alan down in Florida
Maybe when her twins come out she’ll understand.
Nowuvedoneit
Lol I really did just laugh out loud when I read the caption.
Cam
I saw that on Youtube, what she said was something along the lines of “Of course it’s a FRUIT pie.”
Yeah, she was all sweetness and light.
nf0603
Anita is the ultimate textbook example about biting the hand that feeds. Probably upwards of 80% of her fanbase were gay men, and she turned on them and saw her career suffer as a result. She really should’ve just done a disco record or something in 1977 instead.
bcbear4u
Anita really was an awful singer…
DickieJohnson
Anita was spokesperson for the FL orange growers, or something like that, right? OJ sales dropped way off, too, as I recall, before she was dismissed from that position. And, wasn’t she Miss America, way back when???
Desert Boy
Nancy Grace is a loud mouthed, hag. She ascended to cable fame on Johnnie Cochran’s coattails during the OJ Simpson trial. Grace is proof that you don’t need intelligence to get a JD.
petensfo
Anita Bryant is a villain. It was she that organized against one of the first anti-discrimination laws in Dade County. They were ‘protecting the children & society’ from the gays… (sound familiar?) There was a big domino effect after that & it cost us dearly.
No too long after came AIDS & our political fights were more focused on keeping people alive. Decades were lost. Only with recent gains have Americans finally awakened to gay-equality as a civil rights issue & a long overdue American promise.
Nancy Grace is an idiot, but also completely irresponsible by making such a statement. When Anita Bryant finally dies, I expect to be one of many at a huge, HUGE, f’n party.
Mezaien
Nancy Grace, I could have Devirginses you to if you only had the money. You just like the Arizona, bitch Jane Brewer.
UdontGay
please comment on “Dr.” Bethany Marshall’s video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TbNHvdpjeX4
BrianZ
Grace looked appalled that someone wasted that pie.
Bad Ass Biker
@Cam: And it was alleged to have cost 69 cents……
hotboyvb81
@DickieJohnson:
Anita was runner up at Miss America….More Tales of the City goes into the Anita Bryant crusade- main caharacter Michael is from Florida where his parents grow oranges…he’s not out to them, but comes out to them after his mother writes saying she has joined Anita’s ‘Save our Children’ campaign against gays. It’s a wonderful scene in the book and the mini series.
hotboyvb81
I think a documentary about her is in the works.
Desert Boy
@BrianZ: – HAHAHAHAHA! Good one!
hotboyvb81
I’ve yet to see Nancy issue any apology/statement on this- this happened 2 days ago…I guess all the Jonah Hill outrage is getting all the atention.
Tackle
Actually I’m more surprised by Dr.Bethany Marshall than I am about Nancy Grace. Dr. Marshall claims to be an ally of the LGBTQ community, and has built her practice off the backs of gay men, for the past 15yrs. Heavily advertising her practices in gay magazines. First she started off as sometype of therapists, and later on as a psychologist, specializing in the relationships of gay men. This could have been a very teachable on the part of Dr.Marshall to Nancy. She seemed just as ignorant about Anita’s past actions against gays, as Nancy is.
jar
I’m surprised the author fails to mention the boycott of Florida oranges over Anita Bryant. Bryant was a spokesperson for the Fla orange growers. Gay men and lesbians launched a boycott of Florida oranges, which led to her dismissal and the end of her career. Bryant essentially disappeared from public view after that. Know your history.
Marc
Anita will not be remembered for her voice but the idiot that she became.Grace is brown kissing to keep that age group as an audience.
nevereclipsed81
Because of course, you never see gay men supporting beautiful women with beautiful singing voices, we’re all insanely jealous and want to “take them down a peg”. please.
Bee Gaga
After reading the headline and half-way through reading the story I realized that this was in fact NOT about Anita Baker. Anita Bryant? Who? Chile cheese!
lykeitiz
Yeah Nance, and George W Bush had that shoe thrown at him because people are jealous of his painting skills.
sanfranca1
“…Why did that guy do that?…” Because, Nancy, Anita Bryant was an evil witch, much like yourself.
AJAnders
The public in 1977 knew why that activist threw the pie in Anita’s face. 37 years later, Nancy Grace doesn’t know why.
babybabybaby
Nancy is one sick puppy….
CCBInMI
@DickieJohnson:
Anita was a successful pop singer for a few years after her Miss America runner-up win. Her biggest hit, a song called “Paper Roses,” hit No. 5 on the Billboard charts in 1960 and was successfully remade by Marie Osmond (reaching the same peak position plus No. 1 on the Country and Adult Contemporary charts) in 1973.
Given Marie Osmond’s recently coming out in favor of marriage equality, that puts both female vocalists who had a chart hit with “Paper Roses” on opposite sides of the LGBT rights continuum…
James Hart
Let’s use some logic here! Although I vehemently disagree with Anita Bryant’s views, no one has a right to PHYSICALLY attack another person, nor do they have a right to infringe on other people’s rights, whether it is the right to marry (gays) or the right to freedom of speech (Anita Bryant).
hex0
@James Hart:
OMG somebody threw a pie at the bitch! Assault!
Think for a second how many gay people’s lives she made a misery with her vicious propaganda attacks against us. Fuck her she still has freedom of speech but so do I, when she dies we should piss on her grave.
DickieJohnson
@CCBInMI: Thanks, CCB! I remember the (1960!) “Paper Roses”, which was played on oldies radio forever! Didn’t know Anita sang it! Also, I didn’t know about Marie’s endorsement of SSM. She’s a Mormon.
gaym50ish
Celebrities and politicians of today need to take a lesson from Anita Bryant and consider how they want to go down in history. Although Bryant was Miss Oklahoma, a Miss America runner-up, a popular singer and pitchwoman for Florida orange juice, she will always be most associated with her bigoted “Save the Children” media campaigns of the 1970s. People who think like her will not be treated kindly by historians.
Lots of our celebrity allies at the time spoke out against Bryant, including Barbra Streisand, Bette Midler, Mary Tyler Moore, Carroll O’Connor and Jane Fonda. The orange-juice industry didn’t want to be embroiled in the controversy, and they gave her “a day without sunshine.”
lykeitiz
@hex0: THANK YOU! I am so tired of people defending “free speech” when that speech comes from someone in a position to influence legislation (as she was) that is so damaging to others (in this case, us). So yes, fuck her and that pie, and I personally won’t mourn on the day she becomes as dead as her career.
James Hart
@hex0: Classy. Very classy.
AxelDC
If there were any justice in TVLand, Nancy Graceless would have been sacked after trying to railroad the Duke Lacross team for rape. The local prosecutor lost his job for unethical conduct, but apparently there is no such thing as ethics in TV journalism where Graceless is concerned.
cdh8
Seriously? This is really a stretch Nancy…LOL. I’m really trying to understand how Anita Bryant fits into this conversation. These are two totally different circumstances that are not parallel in anyway what so ever. I’m sure Brad Pitt would love being included in a conversation regarding unfair treatment of Anita Bryant and the similarity you find between the two circumstances. You really should review your history.