Editorial
Front Page - Friday, October 2, 2009
Are We There Yet?
All in a year
Jay Edwards
In 1977 the Democrats won back the White House and began trying to purge the nation’s memory of Watergate and Vietnam. Jimmy Carter was sworn in as the nation’s 39th president on January 20th, and the next day he pardoned all the draft evaders from the war.
Gerald Ford was also in a forgiving mood on his last day as commander-in-chief when he pardoned Iva Toguri, better known as Tokyo Rose, who had been convicted of treason in 1949 and spent six years in prison. She died three years ago in a Chicago hospital at the age of 90.
Out west there was a man on death row who wouldn’t get a pardon.
It would be the first time in four years that a person would be executed in the U.S. since the Supreme Court had reinstated the death penalty. It took place in Utah, and at that time, the state known mostly for Mormons and beehives had two methods of killing convicts - firing squad or hanging. Gary Gilmore was allowed to choose between the two. His reply was, “I’d prefer to be shot.”
Back east in Miami it was unusually cold, even for January, and that city saw its first ever snow fall. It hasn’t happened since.
Perhaps the bizarre Miami weather was a sign from above for Florida and the rest of the nation to watch out for a former orange juice-promoting beauty queen, who was about to come out of her sexually political closet.
Florida’s Dade County had passed a human-rights ordinance that prohibited discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. In response to this, Anita Bryant felt called to lead a campaign to repeal the ordinance. The campaign was based on “Christian beliefs regarding the sinfulness of homosexuality,” and the perceived threat of “homosexual recruitment” of children.
Those concerns inspired the name of Bryant’s political organization, “Save our Children,” which called for opposition to gay rights and gave birth to the religious right.
Phrases like, “As a mother, I know that homosexuals cannot biologically reproduce children; therefore, they must recruit our children,” and “If gays are granted rights, next we’ll have to give rights to prostitutes, and to people who sleep with St. Bernards, and to nail biters,” were common in Bryant’s campaign speeches. It was pearls of wisdom like these, and other personal attacks on homosexuals, that drew tens of thousands of new recruits into the movement. The Rev. Jerry Falwell also came to Miami to help out. But it was Bryant herself, who first led fundamentalist Christians into politics. And on June 7, 1977, her campaign led to a repeal of the anti-discrimination ordinance by a margin of 69 to 31 percent. The following day, Bryant stated, “In victory, we shall not be vindictive. We shall continue to seek help and change for homosexuals, whose sick and sad values belie the word ‘gay’ which they pathetically use to cover their unhappy lives.”
The fallout from her activism would have a devastating effect on Bryant’s entertainment career. And her contract with the Florida Citrus Commission lapsed in 1979, because of the negative publicity resulting in boycotts of Florida orange juice. She filed for bankruptcy in Arkansas in 1997 and in Tennessee in 2001.
A couple that did enjoy financial success in 1977 was Melchor and Victoria Javier, from the Phillipines. It all began when they ordered a $1,000 bank draft from Mellon bank in Pittsburgh, to be sent to them in Manila. Mellon more than complied when they accidentally added three zeros to the draft, and the Javiers received a check for $1,000,000 instead of $1,000.
Thrilled with their windfall, the Javiers immediately began spending the money. They paid $433,000 for a 160-
acre California lot; spent $37,333 gambling; $42,000 for gifts to relatives and friends; and $120,000 “miscellaneous expenditures and the balance they deposited in savings accounts.
When surprised bank executives discovered the error, they sought to recover the money, but the Javiers refused to return the overpayment, insisting they had spent most of it. The bank sued, but it is still unresolved.
In 1977 we lost entertainment legends Groucho Marx, Bing Crosby, Charlie Chaplain and Elvis Presley. But one of the year’s most unusual stories was about someone who didn’t die, but probably should have.
Roy Sullivan was a forest ranger who was struck by lightning in 1977 and lived to tell about it. In fact he had lived to tell about being struck by lightning seven times during his life.
The first time it happened was in 1942, when he was in a fire lookout tower. He was hit in the leg and lost the nail on his big toe. Thirty-five years later, while fishing, Sullivan was struck for the seventh time and suffered burns on his arms and chest.
Sullivan died in 1983 at the age of 71, from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
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