In 1977, Anita Bryant, former spokeswoman for the Florida Citrus Commission began her "Save Our Children" campaign, a movement based on protecting children from the alleged pedophiliac tendencies of LGBTs by repealing local ordinance in Dade County that protected citizens from discrimination based on sexual orientation.
Anita was just one of many people who believed Homosexuality to be a sin, a choice taken by human beings for the sole purpose of corrupting the sanctity of marriage and harming innocent children and animals under a facade of love.Â
So, why do I focus on Anita when there are so many other examples of those opposed to Gay Marriage?
Because she is the mold for those opposed. An old, bitter lady who grew up in Conservative right-wing America, holding onto values designed to protect us from the unknown in an era where anyone who wasn't White, male and God-Fearing effectively had no speaking power.
This. This old, bitter lady and those like her, is what we, the LGBT community, have been fighting against for centuries. It looks silly, doesn't it? How unintimidating could someone possibly be? And yet, she, and others like her, have been keeping people like me under their thumb, scared stiff of communities of God-Fearing, no, difference-fearing humans.
And then someone got up, said "No more", and pied her in the fucking face. On tv, no less.
The ultimate "shut the fuck up" from a community that abhorred violence but felt the need to lash out in some way against these absurd campaigns.Â
38 years later, on June 26, 2015, the US Supreme Court would rule bans on Gay Marriage unconstitutional. Gay Conversion Therapy, in the same stroke, was ruled consumer fraud, simply because it did not work.
Yet, still, the prejudice remains. The old men and women hang on to their bibles and preach the end of days because a man loves a man and somehow this is wrong. The Transgender community faces cries of pedophilia for wanting to use the women's bathroom. Stupidity continues to pervade the country.
But in spite of this cancer, I look back to that fateful day in 1977...And I know everything will be alright.
Why? Because coconut creme pies exist.
But enough of the history lessons. Let's celebrate another monumental decision in the US' history! Good on ya, Americans! Canada is proud.
Anita was just one of many people who believed Homosexuality to be a sin, a choice taken by human beings for the sole purpose of corrupting the sanctity of marriage and harming innocent children and animals under a facade of love.Â
So, why do I focus on Anita when there are so many other examples of those opposed to Gay Marriage?
Because she is the mold for those opposed. An old, bitter lady who grew up in Conservative right-wing America, holding onto values designed to protect us from the unknown in an era where anyone who wasn't White, male and God-Fearing effectively had no speaking power.
This. This old, bitter lady and those like her, is what we, the LGBT community, have been fighting against for centuries. It looks silly, doesn't it? How unintimidating could someone possibly be? And yet, she, and others like her, have been keeping people like me under their thumb, scared stiff of communities of God-Fearing, no, difference-fearing humans.
And then someone got up, said "No more", and pied her in the fucking face. On tv, no less.
The ultimate "shut the fuck up" from a community that abhorred violence but felt the need to lash out in some way against these absurd campaigns.Â
38 years later, on June 26, 2015, the US Supreme Court would rule bans on Gay Marriage unconstitutional. Gay Conversion Therapy, in the same stroke, was ruled consumer fraud, simply because it did not work.
Yet, still, the prejudice remains. The old men and women hang on to their bibles and preach the end of days because a man loves a man and somehow this is wrong. The Transgender community faces cries of pedophilia for wanting to use the women's bathroom. Stupidity continues to pervade the country.
But in spite of this cancer, I look back to that fateful day in 1977...And I know everything will be alright.
Why? Because coconut creme pies exist.
But enough of the history lessons. Let's celebrate another monumental decision in the US' history! Good on ya, Americans! Canada is proud.