LETTERS From CAMP Rehoboth |
Gay 'n Gray |
by John D. Siegfried |
Thank You, Saint Anita
As a non-Catholic, I'm not completely familiar with the rules and regulations for achieving sainthood. I know that somewhere along the line you must have a certifiable miracleone that's been witnessed and attested to by one or more contemporary observers. I'm also not sure whether I, as a non-Catholic, can nominate another non-Catholic for sainthood, but what the hellI'll give it a try. I nominate Anita Bryant for sainthood. There! I've said it. She's a Baptist and I'm a recovering Methodist, which I recognize might be a problem for the Vatican. Also, she's still living and so am I, but I'm only one of the thousands who can attest to the miracle she brought about for the gay and lesbian community starting in 1977. It's disheartening to find that some of my younger gay friends have no knowledge of who Anita Bryant is, but, alas, they also know little about Saint Judy or Saint Bette. In June of 1977, thirty years ago this month, Anita Bryant, a Miss America Runner-up and the reigning Florida citrus industry spokesperson, successfully concluded an intense campaign of bigotry and hate directed against gays and lesbians in Dade County, Florida. The campaign, billed itself as "Save Our Children," but it was actually an initiative to repeal the ordinance that the county had established to ban discrimination against gays and lesbians. Bryant, using the Northwest Baptist Church in Miami as her base of operation, argued that "Homosexuals cannot reproduce, so they must recruit." I guess that she never realized that, like most gays and lesbians, my parents were straight and that the only recruiting I ever experienced was from the Boy Scouts. Her effort garnered national publicity with both Time and Newsweek featuring her in cover stories. Additionally, the daily press reported regularly on Bryant's perception of the threat that homosexuals posed to society. Like thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, of closeted gay Americans at the time, I followed the Dade County contest closely feeling that defeat of the Bryant effort would be a validation of gays and lesbians everywherea validation of me. But she won. And for me it was a defining moment. I can clearly remember where I was when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, when JFK was shot, when the twin towers tumbledand when I heard the results of the Save Our Children initiative. I'd left a meeting in center city Philadelphia and was driving north on Wissahickon Drive headed to my comfortable suburban home, my wife and three children. KYW News broke into their regular programming to announce the results of the vote and immediately a weight seemed to settle in my mid-section as tears welled up in my eyes blurring my vision. I tried blinking the tears away but finally I had to pull off the drive at a safe spot and I sobbed over and over, "You can't do this to me! You can't do this to me!" Then as my tears dried and my vision cleared, I slowly realized that Anita Bryant hadn't done anything to me; I'd done it to myself. I'd constructed a closet that protected me from the bigotry of the straight world by acting "straight" and avoiding all appearances of effeminacy and flamboyance. But I wasn't willing to keep that closet door shut any longer. I wasn't willing to be categorized, or considered, "less than...," by anyone. A few days later, in his office at First United Methodist Church of Germantown, I spoke to my minister and friend, whom I'd come out to years earlier. "Ted, we've got to do something," I said. "I'm not the only gay man in our congregation and Germantown has tons of lesbians, many of them worshiping in this church. This 'Save Our Children' thing isn't going away. We have to get involved." "What do you want to do?" was his sincere reply. "We need to start with an adult educational forum to educate our members on the issues involved." "Great. Put it together and let me see your plans before we move ahead," he counseled. His encouragement led to my first ever phone call to Philadelphia's Gay Hotline in an attempt to formulate a program and line up speakers. The adult education seminar was so successful that the congregation ultimately expanded their scope of study to include all sexuality, not just homosexuality. Thanks to Anita Bryant I later came out to my pediatric practice partners, to my three children (my wife painfully already knew of my interest in men) and to all the people who were, and are, important in my life. I became more involved in gay rights and helped to initiate a gay physicians' group in Philadelphia which was poised to play an essential role less than a decade later when AIDS first struck. First United Methodist Church continued to actively support the rights of gay clergy within the Methodist hierarchy and continues today to support the ministry of Beth Stroud, an out lesbian associate minister, who within the last two years was officially defrocked for challenging the church rules that bar lesbians and gays from the Methodist ministry. Marking this thirty year anniversary, the Stonewall Library in Fort Lauderdale, has mounted a month long exhibit, "Days Without Sunshine.'' (Video report at Sun-Sentinel.com/anita). The exhibit curator, John Coppola, the former head of exhibits at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, points out that, "In a completely unintended way, Anita Bryant was about the best thing to happen to the gay rights movement.... She and her cohorts were so over the top that it completely galvanized the gay rights movement." She was definitely one of the best things that happened to me. She brought me and thousands of other closeted gays out of the closet and into the fray. I think that qualifies for miracle status and that's why I want to nominate her for sainthood. She was the first person who successfully brought the issue of gay rights to all Americans. Miami-Dade gays and lesbians regained official protection from discrimination in 1998 but Florida is still the only state where they are barred from adopting children, a lingering legacy of the Bryant campaign of '77. John Siegfried, a former Rehoboth resident who now lives in Ft. Lauderdale, maintains strong ties to our community and can be reached at hsajds@aol.com. |
LETTERS From CAMP Rehoboth, Vol. 17, No. 7 June 15, 2007 |