Showing posts with label Anita Bryant. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Anita Bryant. Show all posts

Sunday, March 09, 2008

Anno Domenico: Gay 'ole times with Anita Bryant

American singer / actress Anita Bryant shot to international infamy when she used her star status in her battle to stop a Miami law against discrimination on the basis of sexual preference. That surely alienated her gay fanbase, who felt like she was smashing their heads in with the Bible. And she only wanted to stop them from recruiting (!) and molesting innocent children.
Later on she toned down a little bit and changed her crusade against the bad bad gays corrupting American family values and American society to "Hate the sin, love the sinner".

After magically surviving her birth, her career started at a young age in the pageant industry, later winning titles like Miss America Pageant and Miss Oklahoma.
At 16 she released her first record Sinful To Flirt. She scored three hits in the early 60's including Paper Roses and released christian music records later in the 60's and 70's.
When she divorced she lost her new christian fundamentalist fanbase, and her career seemed to end in bankrupcy in 1997. Her second husband left her, allegedly, for another man.

In 2005 Barnsdall, Oklahoma she was honoured when a street got her name (Why?). Today she runs Anita Bryant Ministries International. (link here).
Read more about her birth story, (which is second to Jesus' birth only), a very effective gay orange juice boycott, a fruit pie (pictured) and Bryants life and hate campaigns and at her Wiki.
Her biography subtitled The Survival Of Our Nation's Families And The Threat Of Militant Homosexuality seems still available in the second hand bookstores bargain bins.

Anita Bryant recorded a great version Volare which appeared on her 1962 LP In A Velvet Mood (Columbia CS-8685) and it was also released as a 7" single (Columbia - S731571)


2008: Anno Domenico is a tribute to Domenico Modugno's Eurovision classic Nel Blu Dipinto Di Blu (Volare) which conquered the world 50 years ago. Eurocovers will feature half a century of remarkable coverversions of the Italian evergreen. With this link you'll get all the Eurocovers posts that have featured (or mentioned) the song so far.