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 Famous Anti-Gay Crusader Has Fallen on Hard Times Attendance Low at Her Pigeon Forge Music Mansion |
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Compiled By GayToday
Bob Kunst, currently a Florida gubernatorial candidate, had succeeded in 1977 during a nationally televised debate at making Ms. Bryant look particularly foolish while promoting her homophobic "Save Our Children" campaign A decade later, divorced from her first husband who'd encouraged that campaign, a reporter from Florida magazine followed Anita Bryant on the trailer park trail and asked her nemesis Kunst for his opinion of her. Reporter Barbara Stewart told how Kunst brightened, claiming that Anita was "the best thing to happen to gay rights…She single-handedly galvanized gays," he said. Ms. Stewart further quoted Kunst: " 'We loved her,' he says, 'She has such potential. She's got such a powerful voice-but she sings the wrong tunes. I always said, she was my best friend. " 'Tell her this: I'd love to manage her career. I'll make her a new folk hero. We could fill the Orange Bowl, Shea Stadium. I'll give the money to AIDS, she can give it to her church. I'll come with her to her mobile homes and pass out condoms. I'll make her a star. Tell her.' " Ms. Bryant might well have benefited from career management skills, it is now clear. At the Anita Bryant Music Mansion in Pigeon Forge, Margaret Cole, who worked the ticket office, explained how "attendance was so sparse some nights that the manager put employees in the seats to boost the cast's morale."
The newspaper tells how Ms. Bryant "has spent the past few years in small entertainment capitals across the Bible Belt, gamely attempting a comeback but leaving bankruptcy and ill will in her wake." Ms. Cole is quoted: "In my opinion, you do not do people like they have done people and live a Christian life…If I owed people like they owe people I would not be able to lay down at night and sleep." |
