The Battle 30 Years Ago - 1978

[Rick336]

Thirty years ago, April 1978, a battle was raging in St. Paul Minnesota. Just six months earlier singer Anita Bryant had successfully forced a repeal of a gay rights ordinance in Dade County Florida that protected gay people from job and housing discrimination. Energized by her success she promised to take her campaign on the road and help other US cities across the country remove laws protecting gays from discrimination.

In St. Paul Minnesota, a prominent Baptist minister contacted Anita Bryant and asked for her help in organizing a movement to repeal his city’s gay rights ordinance. Within weeks the conservative anti-gay Citizens Alert for Morality was formed and a petition had gained enough signatures to put the gay rights ordinance to a vote in St. Paul.

I was living in neighboring Minneapolis in the 70s and was openly gay. Minneapolis also had a gay rights ordinance and the city was on Anita Bryant's hit list of target cities. In early 1978 I became involved in St. Paul Citizens for Human Rights, a new lesbian and gay organization formed to fight the attack on the gay rights ordinance in St. Paul. I volunteered and worked under Steve Endean, one of the group's organizers and a local gay rights activist. Steve was dedicated to civil rights protection for gay people in Minnesota.

The amount of misinformation put out by our opponents was incredible. A widely distributed pamphlet by Citizens Alert for Morality was designed to play on people’s fears. It gave a frightening scenario of an invasion of morally corrupt “perverts” and the recruitment of the "uncommitted" into "the homosexual lifestyle".

Here's the pamphlet from 30 years ago:


A MOST URGENT MESSAGE!!

Dear fellow Citizens,

There's a crisis developing in our city that poses a deteriorating
future for St. Paul......homosexuals spreading their influence into
every activity and community under the cover of "human rights" under
the city's Human Rights Ordinance. It's something that has become a
matter of grave concern to the citizens of St. Paul of every religious
faith, race, and political philosophy. Our Twin Cities have become
target cities for well-orchestrated drive for power and influence by
the homosexuals who are making alarming gains with each passing day!
They or their apologists have infiltrated the media, won over some of
the less wary clergy, and persuaded certain susceptible politicians
into their corner.

Their theme of "a human right to a job, housing, etc." has been most
effective in impressing the gullible who are unaware that these never
were or are not now problems for homosexuals any more than for
heterosexuals unless they disgust others by blatant demand for
acceptance of their immoral conduct.

The homosexuals, with supporters won and power secure, have now boldly
added a new theme to their arguments..."homosexuality is not immoral.
It's "natural." This is a theme that has alarmed us into action for
now we realize that their true aim is less to secure "rights" to jobs
etc. than to launch activities to win supporters to the homosexual
movement, if not converts.

The list of rights taken away from the citizens of our city by this
amendment is long. So is the list of opportunities it provides
homosexuals and other deviants to thrust themselves into our daily
lives and the lives of our children.

Our love and concern for all people, including homosexuals, does not
preclude our responsibility for the moral and spiritual welfare of our
children, therefore I urge you to join with me and the rest of your
fellow citizens in voting "YES" to REPEAL THE "AFFECTIONAL AND SEXUAL
PREFERENCE" AMENDMENT to the Human Right Ordinance on April 25th.

The homosexuals are mobilizing powerful forces to vote for the
tremendous advantage over the rest of the citizenry provided them by
this amendment. I urge you to join with me and the rest of your fellow
citizens in VOTING "YES" to REPEAL THE "AFFECTIONAL AND SEXUAL
PREFERENCE" AMENDMENT to the Human Rights Ordinance on April 25, an
amendment that has taken away so many of YOUR RIGHTS.


VOTE YES to protect our city from a possible future as the "Homosexual Capital of the Midwest"!

VOTE YES to protect our children’s moral and spiritual values!

VOTE YES to protect our homes and families from a morally corrupting influence!

VOTE YES to protect our children from perverted teachers as role models!

VOTE YES to protect our children from perverted daycare center workers!

VOTE YES to protect our children from perverted camp counselors!

VOTE YES to protect parents from being jailed for loving their children to fight to protect them.


WHAT HAVE THEY BEEN DOING IN THE TWIN CITIES?

They quickly and quietly got “gay rights” amendments added to the human rights
ordinances of both St. Paul and Minneapolis to provide an “open sesame” into all
aspects of community life.

They organized numerous clubs, many under beguiling names to attract the unwary…
“Target City Coalition”, “St. Paul Citizens for Human Rights”, “Dignity”; others with
bolder names like “Minnesota Committee for Gay Rights”, “Gay Survival Fund”, etc.
The list appears to be growing rapidly as do the dollars pouring into their coffers.

They’ve demanded and received our taxpayer dollars to support their immoral lifestyle;
$21,000 from Hennepin County for “Gay Community Services”, another $21,000 from
the same source for the “Lesbian Resources Center”!

They’ve opened up gay rap parlors saunas and night-clubs supported by extensive
advertising obviously aimed at the “uncommitted” as well as their own kind.

They’ve imported gay films for public showings. Again obviously welcoming the
“uncommitted”.

They’ve infiltrated state and city government offices and other activities, including the clergy
with actual homosexuals or sympathizers.

They’ve imported skilled professionals to argue persuasively for them
on the radio, TV, at public forums and before the students of our schools.

They’ve used violence and threats of violence, to frighten their opposition
into silence.

THESE ARE JUST THE TIP OF THE HOMOSEXUAL ICEBERG!

BECAUSE THEY CAN’T REPRODUCE THEY MUST SEDUCE!

VOTE “YES” TO REPEAL the “Affectional and Sexual Preference” Amendment
which allows perverts to spread their influence throughout the city.

VOTE YES APRIL 25


Citizens Alert for Morality
St. Paul, Minnesota
April 1978



Our efforts to save the ordinance from repeal failed by a three to one vote in St. Paul on April 25, 1978. Just a few weeks later gay rights ordinances were also repealed in Wichita, Kansas and Eugene, Oregon and the Briggs Initiative campaign was underway in California to deny jobs to California's openly gay teachers .

With the efforts of a well organized group and one of America's first openly gay elected officials, San Francisco's City Supervisor Harvey Milk, the Briggs Initiative went down in defeat. Gay teachers in California remained protected. But just three weeks after celebrating the defeat of the initiative, Harvey Milk was shot and killed along with Mayor George Moscone by Supervisor Dan White who had been an opponent of gay rights in San Francisco.

Back in St. Paul, St. Paul Citizens for Human Rights' organizer Steve Endean, decided it was time to fight for gay rights on a national level. Endean moved to Washington D.C. and started the Gay Rights National Lobby and eventually founded the Human Rights Campaign which has become America's largest and most successful LGBT organization.

In 1993 Minnesota finally added sexual orientation and gender identity to the state's nondiscrimination laws. In 2003 an attempt by an anti-gay group to repeal the law failed. Minnesota is now one of a growing number of states that provides protection against discrimination for its LGBT citizens.



Rick

[Zerbie]

Oh what an awful letter.

What's sad is that we still hear so much of the same weird, bizarre claims now in 2008. But I am so thankful for the success we've had in creating a much more open, much safer world since then.

Thank you, Rick, for the courage and commitment you show, but especially for your courage and commitment in being involved in this struggle 30 years ago. What immense bravery! Thank you.

[Vanessa White]

Yeah, that is totally disturbing that people would perpetuate fear in that hate-mongering kind of way, kind of like, well, now?!?! Not as bad, that is for sure; thanks for your efforts in those trying times, Rick. It really was a battle; I was in my teens, not yet aware of what was in store for me. And, I forget so often about Anita Bryant, and the damaging words that she spoke, all supposedly in the name of God.

Not my God......

[keltic63]

Originally Posted by Vanessa White

Yeah, that is totally disturbing that people would perpetuate fear in that hate-mongering kind of way, kind of like, well, now?!?! Not as bad, that is for sure; thanks for your efforts in those trying times, Rick. It really was a battle; I was in my teens, not yet aware of what was in store for me. And, I forget so often about Anita Bryant, and the damaging words that she spoke, all supposedly in the name of God.

Not my God......

I remember when she started speaking out, and I remember the pie in her face. Funny thing is, I don't ever recall hearing anything about gay people before she started talking about it.

You know, I also remember reading in Newsweek, when I was a teenager, about the things gay men do in sexual encounters, and I felt some kind of relief because I had no desire to do most of the things that were listed. I'm guessing that had they listed some of the most extreme sex acts that heterosexuals participate in, I'd have figured I wasn't straight either

[BlueGirl]

I remember well when Anita Bryant was on her rampage and gay rights being repealed in all those places. I have a couple of gay scrapbooks with a lot of clippings from that time. I also have a 45 rpm record by lesbian singer Cassie Culver titled, "What We Gonna Do About Anita".
Thankfully, things have improved a lot for gays in some places but they sure haven't changed much in this ignorant, Bible belt, yahoo state. The capital city of WV (Charleston) recently added protection for gays but that's the only progressive thing I know of that has happend for us in WV except for repeal of the sodomy law a good many years ago.

By the way, have any of you who are out, ever experienced any of your co-workers being afraid to work with you or to be in the rest room with you?
My mate (at the time) and I experienced that when we started going together and came out. Talk about ignorant and homophobic!! We were probably the first gay people they'd ever seen that they were aware of. That was in 1972. I doubt if the ideas of people here have changed much since then.

BlueGirl

[BlueGirl]

Thanks, Rick, for all of your caring and effort to get equal rights for us.

Your post really got me to thinking about that time back then and feeling like reminiscing. It never takes much to get me started doing that.

BlueGirl

[Daniel]

Rick- thank you for reminding us of where we've come from and where we are going regarding gay rights. Young poeple in their 20's and 30's, often, don't know this history- and what isn't known and understood makes it all to easy for the same kind of thing to a happen again- that is- if the flame of memory is not kept burning- and passed along.

[Rick336]

Zerbie and BlueGirl,

Thanks for your kind words. :-)

It seems funny now, but there was actually a period in the United States during my lifetime when there was no opposition to gay rights. None.

Ever since the Stonewall riots in 1969, gay rights ordinances had been passed in a dozen cities across the country with no resistance. The civil rights movement of the 1960s had generated an attitude of equal rights for all people and a "live and let live" attitude that carried over into the early 1970s.

Anita Bryant's "Save Our Children" campaign that began in Florida in 1977 was the very beginning of the backlash in America against equal rights for LGBT people that would spread to Minnesota, Kansas, Oregon, California and beyond.

I’ll never forget that day in the spring of 1977 when my roommate Steve first told me about Anita's anti-gay campaign in Florida. I was shocked. I couldn’t believe that anyone would object to equal rights for gay people. After all, it was the 70s, the decade of “do your own thing” and “if it feels good, do it.” And I knew that Anita’s campaign of hate and intolerance would never be accepted.

But I was wrong. Anita Bryant claimed that gay people were a danger to America‘s children and said “The recruitment of our children is absolutely necessary for the survival and growth of homosexuality,” To me this was so absurd that I knew any reasonable, intelligent person would think she was nuts.

But in June of 1977 when the vote in Dade County, Florida was overwhelmingly in favor of the repeal of gay rights, gay people across the country were stunned. We had no idea that we were at the beginning of a very long battle.

Immediately Anita Bryant promised to bring her campaign to St. Paul. But when she arrived in St. Paul in the summer of 1977, we were waiting for her. Nearly a thousand gays and lesbians greeted her waving signs and singing protest songs. Anita began to claim to the news media that gay people wanted to attack her and that her fight to “save the children” was putting her life in danger.

By the winter of 1978 she and her followers had advised Temple Baptist church in St. Paul to push for the repeal of the city’s gay rights law. As a volunteer for St. Paul Citizens for Human Rights I campaigned door to door in the St. Paul neighborhoods encouraging people to vote against the repeal. But even though most people were civil towards me, a few were hostile.

For a couple of afternoons in April 1978, I volunteered to wear a sandwich board and stand on a busy street corner in downtown St. Paul. A sandwich board is made of two 2’X3’ posters connected by straps made to be worn over the shoulders so that the signs can be read front and back. There I stood on a busy downtown street corner in St. Paul with two huge signs covering all but my face and feet that said, “VOTE NO ON APRIL 25th!” As I stood on the corner I passed out pamphlets. The signs I was wearing may as well have said, “LOOK AT ME! I’M A HOMOSEXUAL!”

On one of the days I wore the sandwich board, a catholic nun grabbed one of the pamphlets as she walked past. She immediately wadded it up and threw it back at me and shouted, “I don’t vote for perverts!”

On April 19th, 1978, just six days before the vote, a huge crowd of gays and lesbians from the Twin Cities held a huge rally on the steps of the state capitol building in St. Paul. The St. Paul Dispatch put the number at 2,000. With signs waving and people chanting, “Hey, hey, Ho, ho, Anita Bryant has got to go!” the crowd marched from the capitol building through downtown St. Paul.

But near-by at the St. Paul Civic Center, a crowd of 8,000 attended the “God and Decency Rally” and cheered as Anita Bryant’s husband, Bob Green, condemned homosexuality and the “moral breakdown” of the nation.

The week before the vote the Citizens Alert for Morality ran full page ads in the St. Paul Dispatch saying that gay rights were "NOT human rights" and that it was vital to vote to stop the "homosexual influence."

The campaign of fear and lies had worked. The vote was 31,694 to 54,096 in favor of repeal. Soon after, gays rights laws also fell in Wichita, Kansas and Eugene, Oregon, and Anita Bryant got behind California Senator John Briggs and his fight to outlaw gay teachers in California.

But in California LGBT people were more organized and were able to get the support of Governor Ronald Reagan and President Jimmy Carter. The anti-gay Briggs initiative was defeated in November 1978. And with the newly elected San Francisco City Supervisor Harvey Milk in office things seemed to be turning around for gay Americans.

Then Harvey Milk was shot to death on November 27th. Gay Americans were realizing that the road to justice and equality was going to be a very long one. The “live and let live” days of the early 70s were over.

Now at age 56, looking back I think we’ve made a tremendous amount of progress since 1978. But to my amazement, the same old campaign of fear and misinformation keeps coming back again and again.

The speech given last month by Oklahoma Senator Sally Kerns claiming that homosexuals were “worse than terrorists" sounds no different than the absurd rhetoric from thirty years ago. It’s a reminder that ignorance and fear continues to remain as the favorite weapon against equality.

Rick


Attached are photos of the protest demonstration against Anita Bryant’s appearance in the Twin Cities on May 21, 1977. Anita Bryant referred to gay people as "fruits" so we claimed the day of her arrival as "National Fruit Day".

Most of the young people in these photos are now in their 50s and 60s.

[Steven E. Webster]

Originally Posted by Rick336

Zerbie and BlueGirl,

Thanks for your kind words. :-)

It seems funny now, but there was actually a period in the United States during my lifetime when there was no opposition to gay rights. None.

Ever since the Stonewall riots in 1969, gay rights ordinances had been passed in a dozen cities across the country with no resistance.

I'm not sure I agree with this entirely. I was 18 when the Stonewall riots occurred. The reason those riots occurred was because in New York City and a lot of other places it wasn't legal for gay people to gather in bars!

There was a great deal of repression. It was difficult to even talk about homosexuality. Ignorance was much worse than now.

There was a period in the early 70's when many cities started to pass ordinances expanding equal rights to lesbians and gays.

I think you are right that Anita Bryant was the beginning of a major backlash after LGBT people had started to make some progress

And we've been fighting the culture wars ever since.

But the period before Stonewall was one of repression that is hard for young people to imagine now a days.

I started as a freshman in the UW in Madison in 1969, I "came out" in 1971 and got involved with the local "Gay Liberation Front." It was then that I learned that in the mid-1960's there had been a purge of gay students and faculty at the UW only in the mid-1960's. What happened here in Madison then sounded a lot like stories you hear about Brigham Young University only a few years ago.

It's just been a really long struggle, the LGBT movement. If we consider that the modern movement U.S. movement began with Harry Hay back in the late 1940's, we've been at this struggle for 60 years. There are periods of progress, and then there are set backs. But I think, overall, the progress has been amazing.

Steven Webster

[Steven E. Webster]

Rick & Friends,

Looking again at you original post, I'd like to add a few more comments.

Progress has been uneven and spotty. For instance, the wave of anti-gay ballot measures that Anita Bryant started 30 years ago was stopped in a number of places when some folks were afraid it was unstoppable. You mentioned how the anti-gay Briggs initiative was stopped in California. (Then there was Milk's assassination--another setback.) Also at that time, we stopped an attempt to overturn an equal rights ordinance here in Madison. Then, only a few years later in 1982, Wisconsin became the very first state to establish equal rights for LGBT persons state-wide. Here we are, next door neighbors to you folks in Minnesota.

So, like I said, progress is uneven and we have our setbacks. But, overall, there has been progress.

Steven W.

[sailaway58]

My wife and I had been married one year when our church took a bus load of people to the Indianapolis State Capital to protest Gays. It really wasn't a protest of gay rights but of gays in general. We had no idea what we were in for. I remember hearing a speaker shouting, get the gays out of the schools and into the jails where they belong. Cindy and I looked at each other and both agreed we did not agree with that. Anita was to speak but could not because of death threats.
Some of the very logic, or lack of logic used then is still used today.
I am glad we can grow, change our stance and views.
I was 19 and had been married a year. (no, we did not have children yet)
You could not have convinced me then being gay was not a sin but I was equally opposed to all the hate speech I heard that day.
When I had my sons I hugged them lots so they wouldn't want it from another man. Now I know they didn't need to be straight but I'll never regret the hugs.

[Rick336]

Originally Posted by Steven Webster

Also at that time, we stopped an attempt to overturn an equal rights ordinance here in Madison. Then, only a few years later in 1982, Wisconsin became the very first state to establish equal rights for LGBT persons state-wide.

Steven,

I remember the day in 1982 when Wisconsin passed that law. It was great news. I was hoping it was the beginning of a national trend. And it was.

Now there are twenty states and the District of Columbia, and over 140 cities and counties that have enacted such bans against discrimination. The states banning sexual orientation discrimination in private sector employment are California, Colorado, Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, and Wisconsin.

Fourteen of those states also have bans that include gender identity.

In 1977, Harvey Milk was one of only a few openly gay elected officials in America. Today there are nearly 400.

Rick

[Rick336]

I said above that before Anita Bryant's campaign to repeal gay rights laws in the spring of 1977, that it seemed that no one resisted gay equality in America. But I think that to me and to millions of other gays and lesbians in the country that it was just never an issue. We didn't feel the need to become active because there was nothing going on.

After Stonewall in 1969 and before 1977, 40 cities in the United States passed gay rights ordinances with little opposition. Gay rights was not making news and nobody seemed upset.

But Anita Bryant's anti-gay campaign in Dade County, Florida in 1977 made national news and was the cover story for Newsweek Magazine. Anita became joke material for Johnny Carson on the Tonight Show and "Weekend Update" on Saturday Night Live.

In June 1977 there were huge protest demonstrations all over the country against Anita Bryant. In New York City and San Francisco thousands took to the street shouting "Out of the closets and into the streets!" and "We are everywhere!"

For many it was our first time being active in the movement. When we got news in May 1977 that Anita Bryant was coming to the Twin Cities, the Minnesota Committee for Gay Rights organized a huge protest demonstration. It was the first time I had ever been involved in anything like that. We were fighting for our basic human rights and we've been fighting ever since.

The news article below is from July 4th 1977:


LOS ANGELES (AP) - If Anita Bryant didn't exist, the gay civil rights movement might have chosen to invent her, says David Goodstein, publisher of The Advocate, the nation's largest gay newspaper. "We didn't really have a viable mass movement before," Mr. Goodstein said in an interview. "Now, thanks to Mrs. Bryant, we do. We spokespeople in the movement have known for a long time that these bigots out there want to cancel our vote but it takes one to come along to prove it."

Miss Bryant, a 37-year-old singer who promotes Florida orange juice has denied any personal dislike for homosexuals but nonetheless led a successful campaign to repeal a gay rights ordinance in Dade County, Fla. Her slogan, "Save Our Children," infuriates Mr. Goodstein and other gay spokesmen who point out that police statistics show the majority of child molesting cases involve heterosexual, not homosexual, attacks....

Rightly or not, gay leaders also blame Miss Bryant for the stabbing death last week of a San Francisco homosexual killed by young men who allegedly yelled "faggot" and "Anita is right" as they attacked. "As far as I'm concerned, she's a woman with blood on her hands," said Harvey Milk, a gay political leader. "We have been expecting something like this. I've said for some time she should be indicted inciting violence. Now it's a little bit heavier."

Mr. Goodstein says, however, that Miss Bryant's Florida victory has brought new supporters into the gay rights movement. He points to well-attended Gay Pride marches staged in major cities a week ago as proof that formerly closeted homosexuals have decided to come out and take a stand. "The incredible thing about the post-Anita thing is to look at who makes up the crowd of demonstrator," he said. "You see a kind of gay person you never saw before. They know that their life is at stake. This is a survival issue with us."

Mr. Goodstein is unquestionably one of the country's most influential gay spokesmen. A lawyer and former Wall Street portfolio manager, he has increased The Advocate's circulation tenfold since taking control a little more than two years ago. Today, The bimonthly Advocate sells more than 300,000 copies nationwide and Mr. Goodstein, a bearded, affable millionaire, dined recently with President Carter at the White House.

Mr. Goodstein believes Miss Bryant is a front for conservative elements who seek to repress gays and thinks that struggle between the two groups will expand and intensify. He sees a bill to deny employment to homosexual teachers sponsored by state Sen. John Briggs, R-Fullerton, as an example of antigay sentiment and predicts a strong counterattack from the gay movement. "This is a survival thing with us, not some esoteric issue." he says. "We are defending our homes, we are defending our lives. The movement is now in a new phase and when people fight for survival, they fight hard, mean and tough."

[matthewspeed]

Rick,

We need to remember our struggle from the early days. Thank you for posting this thread. We have won many battles, but the war is not over! I often wonder what Anita Bryant is doing these days. Has she recently made any comments concerning gay issues? She seemed to disappear from the planet after that time in history.

Any news about he? Not that I am an "Anita Bryant fan." but I am surprised that she hasn't joined forces with Pat Roberson or James Dobson. They all deserve each other!

[antiochian]

Originally Posted by matthewspeed

Rick,

We need to remember our struggle from the early days. Thank you for posting this thread. We have won many battles, but the war is not over! I often wonder what Anita Bryant is doing these days. Has she recently made any comments concerning gay issues? She seemed to disappear from the planet after that time in history.

Any news about he? Not that I am an "Anita Bryant fan." but I am surprised that she hasn't joined forces with Pat Roberson or James Dobson. They all deserve each other!

I googled Bryant and she now has her own ministry. Great. In her bio it states that the church disowned her after she got divorced--hmmm, got a taste of her own medicine.

[sailaway58]

In many ways Anita was a victim. She believed what her church told her. She had the courage to stand on what her church said. How many x-gay stories do we need to read to realize that if it is so tough for a gay person to accept homosexuality, we should not be surprised that many heterosexuals don't accept it.
Anita was very well schooled on all the stereotypes, all the fear, all the scripture that seemed to condemn homosexuality. She was used by the church and destroyed because she believed.
I am sure she believed that people could could be set free from this "sin" if they surrendered to Christ.
We live in a world that loves to hate. We hate anyone that is different.
Mark Twain wrote a story about a young man that kills either a Chinamen or an Irishmen. Whichever it was I don't remember but the kid grew up hearing how bad the minority was, the government had passed laws that were prejudiced against the minority. He learned that all of his economic woes were the fault of this group. When he killed the person he expected to be considered a hero. When the community and government turned against him he was in shock. He just killed one of those he was taught to hate.
Twain suggested that the boy had no choice in the matter and the indictment should be against the community. (a horrible paraphrase)

[Zerbie]

Yes, sad but insightful, Tim Sailor.

I am unacquainted with the Twain story: but that was the bent I was on when that little 14 year old shot his classmate so recently. He may very well have thought he was doing something good. May have thought his community would regard him as a hero also.

What an awful idea.

Teaching this sort of thinking is so abominable it's beyond words.

[Rick336]

In April 1978 when St. Paul voters rescinded the law protecting gays from discrimination by a 2-to-1 margin, this sent a message throughout the Twin Cities that LGBT people were not deserving of respect and equal treatment and that homosexuality was a problem to be solved.

The "Citizens Alert for Morality" ran full page ads in the newspapers denouncing the spread of "homosexual influence".

Following the St. Paul vote, several gay men in the Twin Cities were attacked and killed. On June 5th, 1979 Terry Knudsen, a gay man from Minneapolis, was walking through Loring Park and was attacked and killed by three men.

Soon after that, another gay man was stabbed to death in the same area. And on June 15, 1979 a third gay man, Les Benscoter, was found dead in his St. Paul apartment with the words, "fags will die" written in toothpaste on his furniture.

In 1976 there were 52 assaults reported to the No More Assaults Group of the Minnesota Committee for Gay Rights for that year. In 1980 the number had risen to 89.

The message that homosexuality needs to be stomped out is still with us in 2008. Focus on the Family is careful not to sound too cruel or hateful when talking about gay people. But their message is still that homosexuality is a disorder that needs to be "cured" and that LGBT people are enemies of America.

Thirty years ago however the rhetoric was even worse. Back then gay people were typically referred to as "perverts" in the letters to the editor section of local newspapers in St. Paul and Minneapolis.

Here's an example of a letter to the Editor of a St. Paul newspaper a few days before the repeal of gay rights laws there in April, 1978:

The “gays” have stated that their amendment to St. Paul’s Human Rights Ordinance, which gives them a foot and a leg in the door of every conceivable activity in our city, should not be repealed because with it there have been no problems, no threat to peace. No threat to them but a threat to everybody else. And no threat to peace because the power turned over to the homosexuals and other perverts by their amendment is a cocked pistol at the temple of every moral and law abiding citizen of St. Paul.

The “Gay Rights” amendment is a vicious fraud under the innocent cloak of “human rights” to force parents to accept perverts as schoolteachers, scoutmasters, and Big Brothers for their children. It’s a power play, invented by the homosexuals and supported by their political puppets to give homosexuals the edge in the battle for the minds of the young.


And in a Minneapolis newspaper during that same period the Baptist minister who was leading the crusade against gays in St. Paul said that homosexuality was "a murderous, horrendous, twisted, ugly thing," and that, "The self-righteous pride of these perverts is sickening."

When referring to a gay leader in the Twin Cities who was organizing a rally against the repeal of the gay rights ordinance, he said, "Bless that little pervert's heart. He's going to get us more votes than anybody else."

Rick

[Rick336]

Here are some excerpts from an advertisement printed in the Miami Herald on March 20, 1977.

In the ad, Anita Bryant's "Save Our Children" campaign urges the citizens of Dade County, Florida to vote against the recently passed gay rights ordinance.

Here's what it said:


"Homosexuality is nothing new. Cultures throughout history, moreover, have dealt with homosexuals almost universally with disdain, abhorrence, disgust - even death.

While times certainly have changed, and American society largely has developed an attitude of tolerance, that tolerance toward homosexuality is based on the understanding that homosexuals will keep their deviate activity to themselves, will not flaunt their lifestyles, will not be allowed to preach their sexual standards to, or otherwise influence, impressionable young people.

That attitude of tolerance, most unfortunately, recently was destroyed in this community by the Metropolitan Dade County Commission, which voted in effect to legitimize homosexuals' presence in our society - by forcing our private and religious schools to accept them as teachers, by forcing property owners and employers to open their doors to homosexuals no matter how blatant their perverted lives may be.

Homosexual acts are illegal under Florida law and the laws of most states. The Metro Commission, nevertheless, chose to ignore the spirit of our laws and cave in to a small, vocal group of "gays".

Despite the obvious fact that homosexual acts are illegal - and in the eyes of most people immoral - some non-homosexual supporters of the homosexuals' point of view contended that the issue is one of "civil rights."

Unless repealed the ordinance will allow homosexuals, as one leader has promised, to provide "role models" for the impressionable - that is, the right to tell all society, especially our youth, that homosexuality isn't wrong, just different... and of course "gay".

This recruitment of our children is absolutely necessary for the survival and growth of homosexuality - for since homosexuals cannot reproduce, they must freshen their ranks. And who qualifies as a likely recruit: a 35-year-old father or mother of two... or a teenage boy or girl who is surging with sexual awareness?

The breadth and depth of Save Our Children Inc., became apparent several days ago when the organization presented more than 60,000 citizen's names on petitions to the Metro Commission - believed to be the most signatures ever collected in Metro history in such a short time (three weeks), and 50,000 signatures more than were needed to put the ordinance on the ballot for repeal. The Commission subsequently put the issue of repeal on the ballot for a special county-wide election to be conducted Tuesday, June 7th.

What is needed now is for you to speak out.

Save Our Children Inc., urges you and your family and friends to write Dade County newspaper editors and other members of local news media (radio and TV) with your opinions on the subject on the homosexual recruitment ordinance.

Likewise you are urged to contact your friends and family to urge them to vote for repeal of the ordinance June 7.

It is imperative that the Metro ordinance be repealed June 7. The entire nation...The Normal Majority...will be watching the results of this campaign and the election. Yet, even if the ordinance is repealed, the battle of parents to protect their children from homosexuality has not ended, for, at this moment, in the Congress of the United States, 25 misguided congressmen are pushing a bill (H.R. 2998) which would impose on the entire nation the same dangers found in the Metro law."



The vote on June 7, 1977 was overwhelmingly in favor of rescinding the ordinance and denying equal rights to gay people. It started the national movement against LGBT equality that is still with us today.

In 2008, many on the far right are still praising Anita Bryant as a hero. In a recent gathering of opponents of LGBT rights, Anita received a 10 minute standing ovation.

By seeing Anita Bryant as an American hero they apparently also believe as she did 31 years ago that LGBT people are not deserving of basic human rights and that homosexuality should be outlawed.

And they apparently believe the statement from the Save Our Children ad in 1977 that, "The recruitment of our children is absolutely necessary for the survival and growth of homosexuality - for since homosexuals cannot reproduce, they must freshen their ranks."

The absurdity from such ignorance boggles the mind.


Rick

[Sherrie Z]

Thanks for the info, Rick! I appreciate your efforts and perspective.

I can thank Anita Bryant for being one of the influences that caused my involvement in support of gay rights in the late 70's.

And I can thank the notice to alumni from my alma mater alerting us about the upcoming Soulforce visit last year for my involvement with Soulforce now.

Hee Hee Hee : )