Houston’s Stonewall The night Anita Bryant came to town by D.L. Groover

You squeeze mine, Anita . . . I'll squeeze yours, Anita;
Yours are frozen, Anita . . . You are chosen, Anita.
Terrible cost, Anita . . . All covered in frost, Anita;
Smile and pray, Anita . . . You’ll feel gay!!
Tom Paxton

When renowned singer, Florida Citrus Commission spokesperson, and ardent Christian Anita Bryant was asked by the Texas Bar Association to sing at their annual state convention held in Houston in June 1977, no one could have foreseen what significance her appearance would have on our community. The leaders of the march to protest her antediluvian views had no inkling that their peaceful, yet loud, protest would rouse Houston’s queer populace with a roar unheard since NYC’s Stonewall riot of ’69.

While Greenwich Village was the unruly sight of broken bones, sidewalk bloodshed, and uprooted parking meters hurled through windows, Houston’s tame nighttime demonstration was a love fest of slogans, candlelight, and long-stemmed daisies. Stonewall roused the nation; but it was "hurricane Anita" who personalized our struggle.

By December 1976, Bryant’s career, while immensely lucrative from singing appearances at corporate gigs and religious conferences, had stalled. Once, she had been Miss Oklahoma and a second runner-up for Miss America. A discovery of Arthur Godfrey’s, she had three gold records. In the ’60s, she toured with Bob Hope and his USO shows, was featured with Billy Graham on his crusades, had sung at both presidential conventions in 1968, and delivered her signature Battle Hymn of the Republic at Lyndon Johnson’s funeral. But now, still pretty, popular, her voice untarnished, she hawked orange juice from Florida. She needed a jumpstart with national exposure.

When Florida’s Dade County Metro Commission unanimously passed an amendment to their civil rights ordinance in December 1976 that banned discrimination in housing, public accommodations, and employment based on "affectional or sexual preference," Anita Bryant found her new voice.

Overnight, she became the public persona for the "straight-thinking normal majority." She became shrill and strident, a mouthpiece for a vengeful Old Testament God as she spewed hate and bigotry with abandon.

Her Save Our Children From Homosexuals petition drive bowled over the commissioners, who were forced by law to put the ordinance to the vote. Gays lost 2-1. As of June 7, 1977, it was legal to discriminate against homosexuals in Dade County. Flushed with easy success, Bryant set her sights much further. "We shall not let the nation down," she vowed.

She was now a national media celebrity with spectacular clout, quoting Scripture. She had become extremely dangerous. It was this Anita Bryant who was coming to Houston, June 16, at the invitation of the Texas Bar Association to sing at their President’s Dinner.

"I found out that the Texas Bar Association was having her appear at their state convention at the Hyatt," remembers Houston Post reporter Jane Ely. "Two lawyers told me, but they didn’t want to get crossways with the bar. My recollection was that the bar people were kind of doing this in defiance. How and why the stupid Bar Association would have wanted Anita Bryant? Who’d say, Oh, great, let’s get Anita Bryant to come sing for us? I can’t imagine they weren’t making a statement."

Veteran GLBT rights activist Ray Hill credits Ely’s Post article as the heads-up warning to Houston’s somewhat scattered gay community. To some in the nascent activist movement, Hill was persona non grata, having been released from prison only two years earlier. But Gary Van Ooteghem, Houston Gay Political Caucus president, realized Hill’s value as a political organizer and rough-hewn firebrand. Both men worked together to bring off a protest march that would culminate at the downtown Hyatt at the precise moment Anita Bryant took the stage to sing for the assembled lawyers.

"The first word we had of it was in print from Jane Ely," says Hill, "and that gave us plenty of time to organize. I come from the old anti-war and civil rights movements. Marching and demonstrating I know how to do. My problem was that I was just out of prison in ’75, so I was a real embarrassment to the community.

"But we started having meetings and it became quite apparent that I knew how to do this and they didn’t. So we divided up the responsibilities. Since I knew the nuts and bolts stuff, I would be the liaison to the police and be in charge of security."

With the caucus shaky but operational, allied with the Houston Human Rights League, the Gay Activists Alliance at the University of Houston, the Metropolitan Community Church, and student groups from Rice University, they had a reasonable coalition, in Hill’s words, to "stir the pot."

They invited national heavy hitters such as MCC founder Troy Perry, The Advocate’s publisher David Goldstein, Ginny Apuzzo from the Gay Rights National Lobby, and All in the Family supporting actress Liz Torres.

Since Houston at that time didn’t permit the streets to be closed at night for a parade, they asked and got permission to march down the sidewalks of both Smith and Louisiana streets. Meeting in the parking lot of the old Depository II bar on McGowen, the small rally would head downtown at 8 p.m.

Hill and Van Ooteghem anticipated 300 marchers. That would have been a respectable turnout. What they got was an incredible outpouring, estimated anywhere from 4,000 to 10,000.

"Heaven knows where they were parking their cars," says Hill. "For years, I estimated the crowd at about 6,000. Gary insisted that we use the number 12,000. I was always a little uncomfortable with that, and I told him, ‘If I outlive you, it’s going to be 6,000. If you outlive me, it’s going to be 12,000.’ When he died, I had so much respect for his activism, I adopted his figure. So you can quote me at 12,000. He who lives the longest gets to write the memoirs."

There were so many people, the police ordered the marchers off the sidewalks and onto the two streets, exactly where Hill and Van Ooteghem wanted to be for greatest media visibility. Police called in reinforcements to control the DeMille-like multitudes; and the noisy, peaceful demonstration was covered by local press, television, and on live NBC national radio.

John Nechman, former Stonewall Lawyers president, was 12 years old when he heard the march over the radio in his parents’ car.

"Suddenly, a nervous-sounding radio announcer came on, talking about a civil uprising in downtown! When he started mentioning that the crowd was comprised of homosexuals, my nervous parents quickly changed the station. The second we got home, I ran and turned on the radio–in my closet, I’m embarrassed to say–and found a station that was providing continuous coverage of the event. I remember hearing descriptions of a ‘sea of men’ coming from all directions and converging on and around the Hyatt, where they all peacefully but potently began chanting so loud that many feared the event would have to be cancelled.

"When I tell people today of what I remember of that magical night at the Hyatt 25 years ago, they look at me like I’m crazy. ‘That couldn’t happen in quiet, complacent Houston!’ Bryant’s pathetic crusade was very big national news back then; but that night, Houston’s finest were able to drown out her hate. I don’t think it’s an understatement to refer to that event as our Stonewall. That was the first time in my life that I really knew I wasn’t the only one."

Marion Coleman, owner of the printing firm House of Coleman and executor of Gary Van Ooteghem’s estate, while hazy on details, recalls the march’s indelible emotions.

"I was so proud of our community because we really stepped up and stepped forward. It was very positive and very loving in what we were trying to do. It wasn’t so much as anger as it was all of us getting together and being together and supporting each other. That was the most important thing."

"The demonstration was great fun," says Jane Ely. "It kind of overwhelmed everyone. It brought out a great mixture. It brought out all the old civil rights people; it brought out the anti-war people who hadn’t got to go to a good demonstration in a long time; and it brought out a lot of the gay community that was the first time they had done anything. Here they were with all these people who were glad to see them. It was an experience of acceptance and support."

"I wish so much I could have been there in person," recalls Nechman. "It’s one of those things I’ll never forget. To this day, whenever I travel around the country and speak, it’s something I bring up. We had our own incredible moment that evening here in Houston. It really galvanized this community in so many ways.

"As I listened on the radio, there was a respect in the announcer’s voice. They may have expected a few vocal people with placards, but they never expected this mob that was so well controlled and ready to make their voices heard. Other than the hysterical stories, you didn’t hear much about the GLBT community. And here was a night when anybody, even if they were homophobic, would have been impressed with this amazing turnout that could be heard throughout the Hyatt."

"I’ve always considered that particular event the birthplace of Houston’s activism," Ray Hill says, "and the birthplace of Houston’s GLBT people as a community.

"We marched past the Hyatt to the library plaza [as] a group of angry individuals being mistreated by a lot of elements in society, symbolized by Anita Bryant. But we marched back as a community, no longer angry but confident that we could make a difference in our lives. We could marshal the attention of the power brokers and it would ultimately result in some level of equality for us."

The protest demonstration’s slogan that night was: For one evening come out of your closet, you may never go back.

"That proved to be true for hundreds of people," says Hill with pride. "Houston’s gay and lesbian community actually became a community. Before Anita, gay community meant where the bars were; after Anita, gay community meant people."

Where Are They Now?

Anita Bryant

Everything isn’t coming up citrus for Anita

by Sarah Richards

Imagine showing up for a press conference with the whole world watching–and you get a banana cream pie smack in the kisser. Anita Bryant’s story is perhaps the greatest proof of that age-old saying, "What goes around, comes around."

Twenty-five years ago, "America’s sweetheart" was busy touring the country, speaking out against homosexuality. For three years running, the Miss America runner-up had won Good Housekeeping’s "Most Admired Woman in America" contest, and was squeezing a fruitful ad campaign with the Florida Citrus Growers that made her one of the most recognized faces in America.

And there were the books–many of them, and with titles like Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory and At Any Cost.

But to this day, it is Bryant’s 1977 Save our Children campaign to repeal an ordinance she believed forced private and religious schools to hire gay teachers that won her the most notoriety. The boycotts, death threats, crank calls, poop, and voodoo dolls heaped upon Bryant eventually brought about her downfall. She lost her advertising gigs as well as her husband.

"If Stonewall was the match that started the modern gay liberation movement, then Anita Bryant was really the wildfire that spread across the entire country," James Sears, author of Rebels, Rubyfruit and Rhinestones: Queering Space in the Stonewall South, has said.

Fast forward 25 years. Once again, things aren’t looking too rosy for Bryant. After purchasing the Music Mansion in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, Bryant and her new husband, former astronaut test crewman Charlie Dry, began producing a Christian show called Anita With Love. But low/no attendance meant the gig was shuttered.

Bryant could not be reached for comment, but verbiage on her website promises that it is undergoing the always portentous "transitional phase" with "exciting announcements forthcoming." No word yet, though, as to when ex-employees and other creditors will be paid. They are reportedly owed thousands of dollars in numerous states.

With reporting by the St. Petersburg Times