Anita Bryant is still alive? I'm positively GOB-SMACKED!

Yesterday I was doing some reading on Harvey Milk. A very interesting person, by the way. I would urge everyone to Google him.

Suddenly I came upon a name I hadn't heard in years! Decades even!

Anita Bryant. http://www.anitabmi.org/

I thought that horrible woman was long gone. That this world was rid of her hateful spirit, and better for it!

No such luck.

The article was by another religious zealot by the name of Janet Folger. She is the founder of yet another "faith-based" organization called FAITH 2 ACTION.

Oh and if you think Anita Bryant is a WHACK-JOB, just google this other character. You won't be disappointed! I just wonder where these people come from! Were they born that way? Did they develop?

Unlike being homosexual, being a religious fanatic IS a choice! At least I hope so!

So I pull up the Anita Bryant web site! Not only is the dreadful woman still alive and kicking. She's recording music! No really! She has a Christmas album, an old time gospel album, and my own personal favorite.... "FROM ANITA WITH LOVE!"

Love for whom, Ms Bryant?

Certainly not for the percentage of the population you have been spreading ignorance and hate about for decades now! Certainly not for me!

So I immediately sat down and wrote Ms Bryant a nasty e-mail.

Does everybody remember when the two guys hit her in the face with a pie back in (I think) the 70s? Remember what she said to the cameras while she wiped the whipped cream off her lovely face? "At least it was a FRUIT pie!"

This Janet Folger person wrote an article called ANITA BRYANT WAS RIGHT. She interviewed her at some religious dog and pony show in New Orleans in March of this year.

http://www.anitabmi.org/wnd031108.htm

These people are still talking about the HOMOSEXUAL AGENDA!

I thought that expression went out with....went out with...went out with ANITA BRYANT saying "a day without orange juice, is like a day without sunshine!"

I attended college in Miami Florida. Once known as International Fine Arts College, it's now called Miami International College of Commercial Art.

The president of the school was Sir Edward Lee Porter and his wife Lady Ana Lee Porter. (I heard that the titles were purchased!)

Anyway, they lived on Biscayne Bay between Barry Gibb and Anita Bryant!

When I was visiting the school in the summer of 1980, my Mother and I were informed of this fact by the admissions officer. My Mother went ape-shit! She adored Anita Bryant. I remember how she talked and talked about her to the poor admissions officer! I kept thinking, "Mom...please be quiet! We're here to see the school! Its all about me!" You know, like "I'm hearing a lot of words. None of the are Jack!" (Will & Grace reference).

I must remember at Thanksgiving to ask Mom how she, a mother of two Gay sons, feels about Ms Bryant now!

I wasn't Gay back in 1980. Let me rephrase that. I wasn't OUT back in 1980. Let me rephrase that again. I WASN'T READY TO ADMIT THAT I WASN'T STRAIGHT back in 1980.

But we attended Chinese New Years parties at the Porters home.

Just a "stone's throw" from the Anita Bryant residence. No pun intended. I am not a violent person. Well not usually.

Maybe I'd just throw another FRUIT pie her way!

Please check out her page. It will crack you up! And be sure to note her kooky 80s hair and fashions! Her STORE page is a scream!

I think I'll get a "FROM ANITA WITH LOVE" tee shirt for next year's PRIDE event! Perhaps we all should! If it didn't mean I was supporting her "ministries", I would!

I have recently been doing a bit of reading about Harvey Milk. An item on NPR yesterday set me off, and I dove right in!

With all the sadness, and anger surrounding the recent passing of PROP 8 in California, banning Gay marriages, I had forgotten how far we have come!

I was a high school senior when Harvey Milk was gunned down in his office in San Francisco. I barely remembered him. I wasn't out at that time. Still in denial about my own sexual preference. I was one of those people running from himself.

In 1978, violence against Gays and Lesbians was the norm. You could be fired from your job, evicted from your apartment, etc. just for being who you were born to be.

I wonder if Harvey Milk ever thought that a Gay Americans life could be as wonderful as mine is! If he ever thought his dreams and hopes for equality would ever come to fruition?

Cut to 2008. I sit here at work with a framed photo from Wendell's and my Holy Union ceremony in 2006 proudly displayed on my desk. I work for a company that offers Same Sex Partnership benefits to its employees. I live in a loft in the middle of a small town in SC, and I display my rainbow flag from a window sill facing the main street of town. Wendell and I go to numerous parties, and dinner parties with heterosexuals as a regular couple. People address letters and invitation s to us at Wendell Hunt & Barry Turner-Hunt. Our wedding announcement was posted in a local newspaper.

Honestly, sometimes I forget that we are Gay.

People like Prop 8 supporters are losing influence in this country. They are still using those tired old bible verses to keep us down. An argument that so many Americans are so sick of hearing. They are on the way to becoming extinct. Falling out of the public eye like Anita Bryant, and passing away like the late Jerry Falwell.

In this election year. The election wasn't won on GOD GUNS and GAYS this year. We were barely mentioned. This election was won on CHANGE. On HOPE. On being sick of that same tired old message about exclusion, intolerance, and hate.

The way I understand it, the 7 thousand Gay marriages that took place in before the election will still be valid. This issue is SO headed for the Federal Supreme Court! I believe that the issue is so shaky, that it will be overturned!

Getting this Bullshit piece of state legislation passed ain't no real victory for Prop 8 supporters. Putting an unpopular issue to a popular vote doesn't protect civil rights. It violates them. I think they are in for a big surprise!

Today, the state of Connecticut Supreme Court ruled that Gays can marry there. Once, only Civil Unions were granted. Now, its full on MARRIAGE!

I'm so proud of the folks protesting in California! Refusing to just accept this kind of injustice is the kind of action that Harvey Milk was pushing in the Castro, back in the late 70s!

Being religious doesn't give anyone the right to take civil rights away from their peers. They can't hide behind their crazy religious abuse any longer.

Keith Oberman spoke on Prop 8 a couple of nights ago. He urged those crazy thumpers who keep shoving LEVITICUS in our faces to remember another verse from the bible. Namely Do unto others what you would have them do unto you.

Their arguments are wearing thin now.

If we continue to hold our heads high, be proud, be OUT, be ourselves, we'll take Prop 8 (and them) to the mat!