Today in 2SLGBTQI+ history…
In the late 1970s, America was still very much in the thick of a cultural tug-of-war. On one side was the rising tide of gay liberation; on the other side was the conservative backlash, personified in the form of former beauty queen (she was the 1958 Miss Oklahoma beauty pageant winner) turned singer turned anti-gay crusader Anita Bryant.
Bryant, best known in the ’60s as the face of Florida orange juice, had repositioned herself in the ’70s as the smiling face of intolerance. She was the star spokesperson for Save Our Children, a campaign formed to repeal a Dade County ordinance that protected people from discrimination based on sexual orientation. Bryant’s rhetoric was soaked in sanctimony. She claimed gay people were trying to “recruit” children. Her mantra? “Homosexuals cannot reproduce – so they must recruit.” Her words weren’t just offensive; they were effective. The ordinance was repealed in June 1977 – a crushing defeat for the local LGBTQ+ community and a galvanizing moment for activists nationwide.
On October 14, 1977, Bryant was in Des Moines, Iowa, giving a press conference after performing at a religious event. As the cameras rolled, gay activist Thomas Lawrence Higgins stepped forward with what looked like a request to speak with her. In a matter of seconds, his hand flew forward – and so did a banana cream pie, which collided with Bryant’s face on live television. Gasps. Laughter. Outrage. And then, history.
The moment became iconic almost instantly. Caught on camera, it splashed across TV screens and front pages nationwide. Bryant, ever the media-savvy former Miss Oklahoma, tried to salvage dignity through humour. “At least it was a fruit pie,” Bryant quipped, face dripping with custard and indignation. But for the LGBTQ+ community, the moment was far from a joke. It was protest. It was performance. It was political pie-throwing as resistance – and Higgins delivered it with precision.
Immediately after he threw the pie, Higgins was tackled, arrested, and briefly jailed. But he was also immortalized as a hero to the queer community. The pie wasn’t just dessert: it was defiance. It was a turning point in the narrative of queer resistance.
In the years following the incident, Bryant’s star dimmed. Boycotts of Florida orange juice, spearheaded by gay activists and their allies, began to take a toll, and public sentiment slowly shifted as Bryant lost endorsement deals, television contracts and, eventually, her marriage. Her fall from grace was, in many ways, poetic justice.
In 2011, she defended her lifetime of anti-gay activism, saying “I did the right thing” and “I never regretted what I did.” She died from cancer in 2024 in Edmond, Oklahoma, at the age of 84.
Higgins didn’t become a household name, but his legacy lingered. He was part of a growing generation of queer activists who believed in visibility, bold action and unrelenting resistance. He died of AIDS-related complications on November 10, 1994, and was buried in Roseville, Minnesota. His pie-throwing protest remains one of the most legendary acts of queer civil disobedience in American history.
It’s tempting to view the Bryant pieing as camp comedy – a B-roll moment in queer history. But behind the spectacle was a deep well of pain and power. “Gay people were dying,” said one activist who knew Higgins. “Not from violence necessarily, but from the violence of erasure. That pie was a message: we are here. We matter. And we will not be silent.”
POST A COMMENT