# Anita Bryant Passes **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [January 10, 2025, 4:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anita-bryant-passes/1012786 "2025-01-10T04:15:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2025, 4:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anita-bryant-passes/1012786/1 "2025-01-10T04:15:32Z")
[From Yahoo:](https://www.yahoo.com/news/anita-bryant-singer-anti-gay-234200880.html) > Anita Bryant, a multi-Grammy nominated singer and former Miss Oklahoma who later became a high-profile campaigner against gay rights in America, has died at the age of 84. ---
**Author:** ![SuntanLotion](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/suntanlotion/32/16165_2.png) [@SuntanLotion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SuntanLotion)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2025, 4:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anita-bryant-passes/1012786/2 "2025-01-10T04:16:40Z")
Dan Savage usually posts Not the obit I wanted to read today. I bet he didn’t this time. ---
**Author:** ![Bullitt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bullitt/32/5725_2.png) [@Bullitt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bullitt)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2025, 5:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anita-bryant-passes/1012786/3 "2025-01-10T05:50:10Z")
You mean, she was still alive? I thought she had passed away a long long time ago. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2025, 5:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anita-bryant-passes/1012786/4 "2025-01-10T05:56:57Z")
> [@Bullitt](#): > > I thought she had passed away a long long time ago. She was the same age as my mother (born in 1940). When she was on TV a lot, in the mid-to-late 1970s, both on ads for Florida orange juice, and news coverage for her anti-gay campaign, she was only in her mid-to-late 30s, but looked at least a decade older than that. The picture below is her in 1977, and to me, she looks a whole lot older than 37. [![](https://i0.wp.com/makinggayhistory.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/1977-02-SoC-AP770215036-HIRZ-scaled.jpg?w=1920&ssl=1) ](https://i0.wp.com/makinggayhistory.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/1977-02-SoC-AP770215036-HIRZ-scaled.jpg?w=1920&ssl=1) ---
**Author:** ![Bullitt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bullitt/32/5725_2.png) [@Bullitt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bullitt)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2025, 6:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anita-bryant-passes/1012786/5 "2025-01-10T06:07:47Z")
She definitely looks older than 37 to me too. ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2025, 10:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anita-bryant-passes/1012786/6 "2025-01-10T10:54:35Z")
Wow. Yeah. My mother was also born in 1940, but until she succumbed to the cancer that would kill her, always looked younger than she was in a painting-in-the-attic sort of way. When my mother was that age, she could pass for straight-up 30. Not fair that my mother died first. My mother was a supporter of gay rights, even in 1977. My brother and I had a babysitter who was gay. He was one of my father’s grand students, and out to my parents, and they were perfectly fine with a gay male babysitter in the early 70s. ---
**Author:** ![Roderick\_Femm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/roderick_femm/32/14875_2.png) [@Roderick\_Femm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roderick_Femm)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2025, 11:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anita-bryant-passes/1012786/7 "2025-01-10T11:05:02Z")
> [@kenobi\_65](#): > > she looks a whole lot older than 37. All that Florida sunshine. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2025, 11:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anita-bryant-passes/1012786/8 "2025-01-10T11:09:50Z")
Her attitudes were far older than her years. Some people are just born ancient. ---
**Author:** ![ctnguy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@ctnguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ctnguy)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2025, 11:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anita-bryant-passes/1012786/9 "2025-01-10T11:10:06Z")
> [@SuntanLotion](#): > > Dan Savage usually posts Not the obit I wanted to read today. > I bet he didn’t this time. He posted “Not the obituary I wanted to read today…but it’ll tide me the fuck over.” > **[Dan Savage (@dansavage.bsky.social)](https://bsky.app/profile/dansavage.bsky.social/post/3lfduhepn222k)** > > …but it’ll tide me the fuck over. ---
**Author:** ![Love\_Rhombus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/love_rhombus/32/10694_2.png) [@Love\_Rhombus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Love_Rhombus)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2025, 11:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anita-bryant-passes/1012786/10 "2025-01-10T11:55:57Z")
Like a national kidney stone, she passes and provides some small relief. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2025, 12:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anita-bryant-passes/1012786/11 "2025-01-10T12:39:50Z")
Anita had disappeared from the national scene a long time ago. I was surprised when I read that she was actually performing a local musical revue somewhere down south in the book **Roadside America**. Then that show closed and she showed up in Pigeon Forge, as related in the Roadside America website. Then that closed in 2001: > [@](#): > > **Anita with Love** , the latest incarnation of the Anita Bryant musical revue, has turned up on the strip in Pigeon Forge. We’ve tried to follow Anita’s career as she’s migrated eastward from Eureka Springs in the early 1990s, to Branson, and now Pigeon Forge. Anita with Love opened in late 1999. The show has been beefed up with dancers and an orchestra; Anita belts out her pop and show tunes, and her classic “Come to the Florida Sunshine Tree” TV commercial jingle. She still wears the Vietnam Era field jacket of the late “Private Bryant” for her patriotic finale. > > Once a Miss America runner-up and spokeswoman for the Florida orange juice industry, Anita had purchased a Branson, MO, theater in 1995. She and husband Charles Day filed for bankruptcy in 1997 to reorganize $10mm in debts. Day, a former NASA test crewman, was a childhood friend of Bryant’s back in their hometown of Tishomingo, OK. > > _[Update: Anita went bankrupt again in 2001 and the show closed.]_ > > [06/25/2000] > **[Anita Bryant Show lives on - Roadside America](https://www.roadsideamerica.com/news/5653)** > > Travel news about Anita Bryant Show - Closed in Pigeon Forge, TN, reported and commented on by the editors at Roadsideamerica.com, featuring unusual attractions, tourist traps, weird vacations, and road trips ---
**Author:** ![commasense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/commasense/32/3017_2.png) [@commasense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/commasense)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2025, 12:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anita-bryant-passes/1012786/12 "2025-01-10T12:46:45Z")
Yanno, although she was horrid and appalling at the time, these days that kind of gay bashing seems quaint and almost innocuous compared to the despicable bile-spewing monsters that overwhelm our public discourse today. ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2025, 12:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anita-bryant-passes/1012786/13 "2025-01-10T12:57:25Z")
From the mortal coil, she has passed. But for kindness and tolerance, she has failed. Now there is a tiny bit less hate in the world, and that’s a good thing. ---
**Author:** ![Jasmine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jasmine/32/2964_2.png) [@Jasmine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jasmine)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2025, 1:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anita-bryant-passes/1012786/14 "2025-01-10T13:01:59Z")
Lord, according to that picture at least, she looked oldish on the Ed Sullivan show! 😳 ---
**Author:** ![Jasmine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jasmine/32/2964_2.png) [@Jasmine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jasmine)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2025, 1:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anita-bryant-passes/1012786/15 "2025-01-10T13:15:35Z")
> [@Roderick\_Femm](#): > > All that Florida sunshine. [**Yale Medical Study: Photoaging (Sun Damage)**](https://www.yalemedicine.org/conditions/sun-damage) I’m thinking you meant that as a joke, but it is actually true. I’m notorious for avoiding direct sunlight for any time longer than absolutely necessary, and my skin definitely shows the benefits. Sun worshipers pay a price, and perhaps she was one of them? [**In China, a Long Tradition of Dodging the Sun** [Photos] ](https://asiasociety.org/blog/asia/china-long-tradition-dodging-sun-photos) According to this web site, “Asia Society”, many Chinese women agree with me. ---
**Author:** ![Knowed\_Out](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/knowed_out/32/7380_2.png) [@Knowed\_Out](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Knowed_Out)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2025, 1:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anita-bryant-passes/1012786/16 "2025-01-10T13:24:49Z")
I remember when she first made headlines for her anti-gayness, the paper had an editorial cartoon of Bryant chasing a couple of homosexuals while brandishing a whip. The gays had signs reading “ANITA, YOU’RE SICK SICK SICK” and “LYNCH ANITA FROM AN ORANGE TREE” while sticking their tongues at her peevishly. Later, _Howard the Duck_ had an issue where the masked morality-imposing brainwasher villain was revealed to be her. They didn’t actually show her face or say her name (lawsuit avoidance 101), but the dialogue strongly implied it was her. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2025, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anita-bryant-passes/1012786/17 "2025-01-10T15:52:55Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > Her attitudes were far older than her years. Some people are just born ancient. Definitely part of it, as was, maybe, sun damage to her skin. Also, her hairstyle seems really dated by 1970s standards (it reminds me of Betty Ford’s hairstyle), as do her painted-on eyebrows. She was a singer, but the type of music that she sang was popular with a generation older than her own. She was the same age as singers like Toni Tennille, Nancy Sinatra, and Dionne Warwick, but she didn’t have a song chart after 1964 (when she was only 24); rather than adapting as music changed post-British Invasion, she stuck with singing pre-Beatles pop, and continued to sing that same style of music throughout her career. ---
**Author:** ![Roderick\_Femm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/roderick_femm/32/14875_2.png) [@Roderick\_Femm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roderick_Femm)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2025, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anita-bryant-passes/1012786/18 "2025-01-10T16:21:10Z")
> [@Jasmine](#): > > I’m thinking you meant that as a joke No, quite serious. A phenomenon well-documented, for some time now. ---
**Author:** ![Bullitt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bullitt/32/5725_2.png) [@Bullitt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bullitt)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2025, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anita-bryant-passes/1012786/19 "2025-01-10T16:36:57Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > Anita had disappeared from the national scene a long time ago. Maybe that’s why I thought she had already passed way. Her vocal anti-gay position forced her out of the public limelight. Added: I’m having trouble searching to see if she ever changed (or even revised a little) her position against the LGBTQ community. It’s very unfortunate if she did not change. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2025, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anita-bryant-passes/1012786/20 "2025-01-10T16:49:18Z")
> [@Bullitt](#): > > Added: I’m having trouble searching to see if she ever changed (or even revised a little) her position against the LGBTQ community. [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anita_Bryant#Career_decline_and_bankruptcies) has a few quotes that suggest she might have mellowed a tiny bit on it, but it certainly doesn’t sound like she had truly changed her mind (bolding mine): > [@](#): > > In a 1980 _[Ladies’ Home Journal](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ladies%27_Home_Journal)_ article she said, “The church needs to wake up and find some way to cope with divorce and women’s problems.” She also expressed some sympathy for feminist aspirations, given her own experiences of emotional abuse within her previous marriage. **Bryant also commented on her anti-gay views and said, “I’m more inclined to say live and let live, just don’t flaunt it or try to legalize it.”** [[41]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anita_Bryant#cite_note-LHJ-42) In a 2012 interview, her son Robert Green, Jr. said **“she would be putting a lot more energy into fighting gay rights if she still felt as strongly.”** [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anita-bryant-passes/1012786.md?page=2)