Homosexuals pin hopes on Florida

By Drummond Ayres Jr.

• New York Times

MIAMI A dispute here over the rights of homosexuals is taking on national importance.

The dispute will be settled on a local basis June 7 when Miamians vote to repeal or uphold a county ordinance that bars discrimination against homosexuals in employment, housing and public accommodation.

But both sides in the fight have vowed to continue the struggle elsewhere in the country, whatever the outcome of the Miami referendum. National committees are being organized and fund drives are under way in "gay" bars and fundamentalist churches from here to San Francisco.

No other homosexual debate has caught the national attention like the Miami dispute. No other debate has involved so many people, resulted in so much spending, stirred so many editors, made so many talk shows or generated so many bumper stickers and emblazoned T-shirts. Why?

The answer lies primarily in personalities and the particular twist of the Miami issue. The main figure in the dispute is Anita Bryant, the Miami television singer known nationwide for her sunny purveying of Florida orange juice and her devoutly patriotic rendering of "The Battle Hymn of the Republic." A 37-yearold mother of four school-age children and a twice saved Southern Baptist, she heads Save Our Children Inc., the main anti-homosexual group.

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"If homosexuality were the normal way, God would have made Adam and Bruce," she says. "This has become a national fight. We've gotten more than 29,000 letters and taken in about $40,000 from more than 40 states. It won't stop here in Florida. We're setting up to go nationally."

Save Our Children was organized a few months ago after Miami homosexuals persuaded the county commission to pass a homosexual rights ordinance. Miss Bryant's group contends that the ordinance would force schools to hire homosexual teachers and that the teachers would then proselytize and possibly molest children. It warns that similar laws are being considered in other cities around the country and on Capitol Hill.

Those arguments are all just a lot of homophobia," counters Robert Kunst, a Miami homosexual who helped organize the Miami Victory Campaign, one of several groups trying to preserve the ordinance.

"We've heard from just as many people, taken in just as much money, been on just as many talk shows," he ädds. "The truth is that Anita Bryant is the best thing that has ever happened to us. She's really stirred it

good, gotten it in the national limelight once and for all with that trash about child molestation. This is a human rights fight and we're prepared to take it all ever the country. She knows as well as we do that child molestation is usually heterosexual."

Right or wrong, the Save Our Children argument has proved potent. To force the commission passed law onto the ballot for a referendum, Miss Bryant's group needed 10,000 petition signatures. It got 60,000, many by approaching parents in local churches.

"Support is coming in from everywhere," says Mike Thompson, a Miami advertising executive who helped organize Save Our Children. "One day I'm on the phone in Minnesota, talking to legislators there about how to defeat a gay rights bill. The next night I'm on the "Tomorrow' show in New York. This thing is leap-frogging."

A few days ago, the antihomosexual forces received an important boost from Gov. Reubin Askew of Florida, a man who shuns alcohol and tobacco and is sometimes referred to by critics and supporters alike as "Reubin the Good."

"I've never viewed the homosexual life-style as something that approaches a constitutional right," Askew said at a news conference. “So if I were in Miami, I would find no difficulty in voting to repeal the ordinance. I do not want a known homosexual teaching my child.”

Bob Basher, the executive director of the coalition, says that the June 7 vote will be “a very strong precursor" of what may happen elsewhere in the country. He predicts that defeat would result in a national "witch hunt" against homosexuals.

To help Miami homosexuals head off defeat, a number of leading homosexual activists have visited the city, among them Leonard Matlovich, the Air Force sergeant who was discharged when he disclosed his homosexuality. Homosexuals in New York recently held a fund raising rally at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel and are planning several other rallies.

In San Francisco, homosexuals have set up a "Miami Support Committee." They have ordered a “gaycott" of Florida orange juice. Bar patrons sport T-shirts emblazoned, "Squeeze a Fruit for Anita.” Bumper stickers proclaim, “A day without human rights is like a day without sunshine," a twist of Miss Bryant's juice ad that says, "A day without orange juice is like a day without sunshine."

Has the "gaycott" had any effect on sales of Florida juice or endangered Miss Bryant's $100,000 a year television advertising contract with the Florida Department of Citrus?

"Sales are up," says Arthur Darling, a department spokesman. "There's no way of knowing about contracts at this point. Obviously, we'd have been better off if the whole thing had never come up. But as long as she doesn't get involved on our time or with our name, we have no right to deny her First Amendment rights to speak out."

Miss Bryant says that her bookings for entertainment not related to selling citrus are down about 70%. "But I have to carry on this fight,” she adds.

One of her agents is Richard Shack, husband of Ruth Shack, the county commissioner who proposed the homosexual rights ordinance. He said he and Miss Bryant talk only business, no politics.

With the referendum vote a month away, most surveys give the homosexual forces a slight edge. However, a considerable number of voters remain undecided and the turnout remains an imponderable in a community made up, in good part, of conservative churchgoers and retired liberals from the Northeast.

On neither side does anyone pretend to understand a bumper sticker that reads:

"A Day Without Gays is Like a Day Without Anita."

Anita Bryant Bruce?

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Adam and

Leonard Matlovich...alding homosexual fight.