In my home, as a child, the green stamps were kept in the top drawer of the sideboard in the dining room. When enough stamps, given as a reward by local merchants for routine purchases, had accumulated I licked the back of the stamps and placed them in books provided by the stamp company. After enough books were gathered they could be traded in for a toaster, a pair of roller skates, or some other luxury item of the day. I suppose Visa and American Express Frequent Flyer miles are the current equivalent.

Similarly, don’t try to explain the concept of a “shotgun wedding” to a member of a generation in which you can sleep with whomever you choose, and birth control devices come in fifteen styles, twenty-nine flavors, with seventy two self-help instructional booklets or videos to insure a night of ecstasy. It doesn’t compute in younger minds. Even gay history gets lost in the generational shuffle. I recently had a conversation with a young friend and referenced Anita Bryant. The blank look I received told me he didn’t recognize the name. It’s only a matter of time before Judy and Bette and the yellow brick road, all get confined to the dustbin.

In 1977 Anita Bryant, a Miss America runner-up from an earlier decade and spokesperson for the Florida orange juice industry, led a political campaign of bigotry and hatred-“Save Our Children.” The Miami-Dade County Commission had passed an ordinance making discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation illegal. Under pressure from Ms Bryant and her supporters a referendum was held in the fall of ’77 and the citizens of Miami-Dade overturned the ordinance. The Save Our Children party line was that equal civil rights for gays would result in the recruiting of children to be gay or lesbian. A national media spotlight focused on the fight and another twenty years passed before a new measure outlawing discrimination based on sexual orientation was passed by the County Commission.

Her crusade galvanized the gay pride movement and ironically the Anita Bryant victory was the catalyst that brought me and thousands like me out of the closet and into the main stream of the gay and lesbian rights movement. It’s also ironic that her career and her marriage took a nosedive following her political success. She was fired as Miss Orange Juice when gays and lesbians and their supporters began a juice boycott. Now, however, some twenty years later, the embers of Anita Bryant homophobia smolder in South Florida and repeal of equal rights for gays and lesbians is back on the fall ballot.

This time around, however, the Mayor of Miami, the head of the County Commission and many prominent straight citizens, are solidly opposed to the repeal. And the South Florida climate has changed dramatically in not so subtle ways.

In April, in Fort Lauderdale, the Broward County “Teacher of the Year Award” was given to a lesbian Social Studies teacher at Sunrise Middle School. The press coverage of the event simply noted in the body of the report that at the awards presentation she thanked her parents, her principal and her partner, who also teaches at the same school. I was delighted for the award to a lesbian, but even more delighted that her being a lesbian carried the same newsworthiness as reporting the color of the dress she wore or the subject she taught-just a piece of relevant information and not a headline.

Similarly, on June 7 in Miami, Kevin Burns and Rob Flint received a Father of the Year award presented by the Father’s Day Council at an American Diabetes Association gala. A member of the Council Board said, “We have chosen them not because they’re gay, but because of what they have struggled with to become fathers. Heterosexuals have children without having to think about it. For these two men it’s been a struggle-they had to change residences to become a dad. Because of their struggle and their desire so much to be a dad and everything they had to go through, we just thought they needed to be recognized.” Burns and Flint, partners of nineteen years, had to move to Vermont and establish residence because Florida has a ban on gay adoptions.

But the best evidence that the times are changing was last Friday when I served my regular shift as receptionist and switchboard operator at the Gay and Lesbian Community Center of South Florida. Directly across Andrews Avenue from the GLCC is the North Andrews Pre-School. The pre-school parents association had rented the main auditorium of the GLCC for their “pre-school prom” on Friday evening, and their graduation ceremonies on Saturday afternoon. I was grinning for my full three hour shift as I watched parents bring in food, blow-up balloons, decorate tables, set up a music system and prepare for an event that was obviously important to the parents, if not the kids. By the time I left, half-pints of every complexion began arriving, a few in miniature tux and ball gowns, and all in their Sunday best. It seemed evident from the start that chasing and breaking balloons would outdo dancing as the favorite prom activity.

I don’t know how Anita would respond to a straight neighborhood pre-school holding a prom and graduation at a gay and lesbian facility, but it didn’t seem to bother the parents and the kids were truly, “having a ball.” The only physical accommodation made for the small fry was to place the jar of condoms for free distribution on a top shelf, out of sight and reach of the kids, and to place the copies of “Hot Spots,” “Outlook,” and other bar rags with fairly graphic pictures, under the receptionists desk. After all, the children might not be able to read, but “a picture’s worth a thousand words” and, despite Anita’s concern, we’re not into recruiting.

Hopefully, by the time these pre-schoolers become voters, discrimination in housing and employment, and discrimination in adoption, will have joined Anita and Judy and Bette in the generational dustbin.