Slow Burn - One Year: Anita Bryant's War on Gay Rights
Slate Daily Feed
Slate
3.9 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 9 July 2021
⏱️ 66 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Slate's new podcast One Year and will introduce you to people and ideas that changed American history--one year at a time. The show is hosted by Josh Levin, Slate's national editor and host of Slow Burn Season 4. And our first season covers 1977: a year when gay rights hung in the balance, Roots dominated the airwaves, and Jesus appeared on a tortilla.
In this show, we’ll focus on key moments that transformed politics, culture, science, religion, and more. This episode you’re about to hear will take you into a courtroom in Miami, Florida, where a local fight over gay rights was about to become a huge national standoff, one with life-altering stakes for millions of Americans. And at the center of it all was a pop singer and orange juice spokesperson named Anita Bryant.
How does the nation’s past shape our present? Subscribe to One Year on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Hey, Slowburn listeners. I'm Josh Levine, Slate's national editor and the host of Season 4 of this show, |
| 0:06.3 | about white supremacist David Duke and his rise to power in Louisiana. I am here to tell you about my new |
| 0:12.8 | podcast with Slate. It's called One Year, and it will introduce you to people and ideas that changed American |
| 0:19.8 | history, one year at a time. |
| 0:22.6 | Season one is about 1977, and we're going to tell you stories that you might have forgotten |
| 0:27.5 | about, and some you may have never heard before. One of the things I love about Slowburn |
| 0:32.3 | is that it makes you think about how the nation's past shapes are present. On one year, we'll focus on the moments that |
| 0:38.8 | transformed politics, culture, sports, religion, and more. The episode you're about to hear |
| 0:45.2 | will take you to Miami, Florida, where a local fight over gay rights became a huge national |
| 0:51.1 | standoff, one that had enormous implications in 1977 and that still reverberates |
| 0:56.8 | today. At the center of it all was a pop singer and orange juice spokeswoman named Anita Bryant. |
| 1:04.0 | Thanks for checking it out, and if you like what you hear, subscribe to one year from Slate |
| 1:09.0 | on any podcast app. |
| 1:18.1 | Most of the time, nobody in Miami cared to watch the Dade County Commission go about its business. |
| 1:24.1 | But the public hearing on January 18, 1977, that was different. |
| 1:26.3 | It was impossible to get a seat. |
| 1:32.3 | There were hordes of people waiting to get into the building. Ruth's shack was on the Dade County Commission. |
| 1:35.3 | Those hordes of people, they traveled from all over South Florida on chartered church buses |
| 1:40.3 | because they were angry about a bill sheet sponsored. |
| 1:43.3 | I had a knot in my stomach and a real fear of what was coming. |
| 1:50.9 | The bill at issue was an amendment to Dade County's non-discrimination ordinance. |
| 1:56.3 | If it passed, it would shore up gay rights in Miami, though in a limited way. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Slate, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Slate and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.