Gay Rights and Moral Panic: The Origins of America’s Debate on Homosexuality

Say the name Anita Bryant to any gay or lesbian person who was a politically conscious adult in the late 1970s and you’re sure to get a swift reaction that can run the gamut from an eye roll and shake of the head to full on anger. Back in the day, she was an enormously popular actress and singer who also was one of the first “spokes models” or television “pitch men” that most people over the age of 40 really remember. She shilled Florida orange juice for the Florida Citrus Commission in nationally televised day time and prime time commercials.

In 1977, Bryant led a successful campaign as the point person for the newly established political organization, “Save Our Children” to get a freshly minted Miami law prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation repealed. She would go on to lead the charge to withhold or repeal gay rights initiatives in several more cities around the country finally only failing when she opposed a proposed law in California that would have given school systems the right to fire teachers for simply making supportive statements about homosexuality or homosexuals. Credit for the overwhelming defeat of the initiative is given, in large measure, to then Governor Ronald Reagan who opposed it vehemently.

So, it was Anita Bryant who, in 1977, spearheaded the whole Christian Right movement against gay civil rights that we are still fighting against today. It’s against that backdrop that the book, Gay Rights and Moral Panic: The Origins of America’s Debate on Homosexuality originates. It chronicles the history of the American religious right resistance to our rights beginning with the Bryant campaign in Miami.

The January 2011 book was written by Fred Fejes, Ph.D., a professor of Media Studies in the Multimedia Journalism sequence at Florida Atlantic University.

The publishers synopsis of Dr. Fejes’ book:

In 1977 and 1978, voters across the country went to the polls in a series of referenda to decide whether lesbians and gay men were citizens deserving equal protection under the law—or perverts and outcasts. These contests served as the first national debate about gay rights, and set the pattern that still shapes this controversy today. Focusing on the first major referendum battle in Miami and moving outward, Gay Rights and Moral Panic is a lively and detailed account of these campaigns, which pitted the civil rights claims of America’s lesbians and gay men against society’s powerful beliefs and fears about homosexuality.

And some pertinent reviews:

“Histories of the gay rights movement tend to concentrate on the Stonewall Riots, but Fejes offers a different perspective on the struggle for equal rights for gays and lesbians, as well as an account of the rise of the conservative Christian movement that explores in depth its relationship to the modern gay rights movement. After reading this extended narrative of political struggles to secure human rights for gays and lesbians, readers will be inclined explore how the struggle for gay rights compares to other notable struggles for justice and equality. Fejes’ narrative skill argues well that, regardless of the specific outcomes, a stronger, bolder homosexual identity as a political force emerged in the aftermath of the 1977 and 1978 campaigns.”—Journal of Homosexuality

“The fight for gay civil rights did not begin in Greenwich Village nor end in the Castro. There have been many battlefields in this long struggle and Miami has played a central role in our ongoing fight for equality. Gay Rights and Moral Panic will take a central place on the list of indispensable works for anyone wishing to understand the past–and the present–of sexual minorities in America.”

–Larry Gross, Professor and Director, USC Annenberg School for Communication