Anita Bryant, the antigay crusader, is dead.

Anita Bryant, the evangelical Christian who led a charge against LGBTQ+ rights, died last month at 84, according to an obituary shared by her family. According to the obituary, Bryant died on December 16, 2024, at her home in Edmond, Oklahoma.

Anita Jane Bryant (March 25, 1940 – December 16, 2024) was an American singer and anti-gay activist. She had three top 20 hits in the United States in the early 1960s. She was the 1958 Miss Oklahoma beauty pageant winner, and a brand ambassador for the Florida Citrus Commission from 1969 to 1980.

From 1977 to 1980, Bryant was an outspoken opponent of gay rights in the U.S. In 1977, she ran the "Save Our Children" campaign to repeal a local ordinance in Miami-Dade County, Florida, that prohibited discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. Her involvement with the campaign was condemned by gay rights activists. They were assisted by many other prominent figures in music, film, and television, and retaliated by boycotting the orange juice that she promoted. Though the campaign ended successfully with a 69% majority vote to repeal the ordinance on June 7, 1977 (Dade County restored the ordinance in 1998), it permanently damaged her public image, and her contract with the Florida Citrus Commission was terminated three years later. This, as well as her later divorce from Bob Green, damaged her financially. Bryant never regained her former prominence and filed for bankruptcy twice.

Bryant was born on March 25, 1940, in Barnsdall, Oklahoma, the daughter of Lenora A. (Berry) and Warren Bryant. After her parents divorced, her father went into the U.S. Army and her mother went to work as a clerk for Tinker Air Force Base, taking her children to live with their grandparents temporarily. She began singing at the age of 2 at the First Baptist church in Barnsdall, with "Jesus Loves Me". She was singing onstage at the age of six, at local fairgrounds in Oklahoma. She sang occasionally on radio and television, and was invited to audition when Arthur Godfrey's talent show came to town. At age 12, she had her television show The Anita Bryant Show, which aired on WKY.

Bryant became Miss Oklahoma in 1958, and was second runner-up in the 1959 Miss America pageant (held September 6, 1958) at age 18, right after graduating from Tulsa's Will Rogers High School.

She appeared early in her career on the NBC interview program Here's Hollywood and on the same network's The Ford Show, starring Tennessee Ernie Ford.

Bryant released several albums on the Carlton and Columbia labels. Her first album, Anita Bryant, which was released in 1959, contained "Till There Was You" and songs from other Broadway shows. Her second album, Hear Anita Bryant in Your Home Tonight (1961), contains "Paper Roses" and "Wonderland by Night", as well as several songs that first appeared in her singles. Her third album, In My Little Corner of the World, also in 1961, contains the title song and other songs that have to do with places around the world, including "Canadian Sunset" and "I Love Paris". Bryant's compilation album, Greatest Hits (1963), contains both her original Carlton hits (because Columbia purchased all the masters from Carlton) plus sides from her Columbia recordings, including "Paper Roses" and "Step by Step, Little by Little". In 1964, she released The World of Lonely People, containing, in addition to the title song, "Welcome, Welcome Home" and a new rendition of "Little Things Mean a Lot", arranged by Frank Hunter. Bryant also released several albums of religious music.