In the 1990s, gay, lesbian, and bisexual activists adopted the initialism LGB. Terminology eventually shifted to LGBT, as transgender people gained recognition. Around that time, some activists began to reclaim the term queer, seeing it as a more radical and inclusive umbrella term, though others reject it, due to its history as a pejorative. In recognition of this, the 2010s saw the adoption of LGBTQ, and other more inclusive variants. (Full article...)
Save Our Children, Inc. was an American political coalition formed in 1977 in Miami, Florida, to overturn a recently legislated county ordinance that banned discrimination in areas of housing, employment, and public accommodation based on sexual orientation. The coalition was publicly headed by celebrity singer Anita Bryant, who claimed the ordinance discriminated against her right to teach her children biblical morality. It was a well-organized campaign that initiated a bitter political fight between gay activists and Christian fundamentalists. When the repeal of the ordinance went to a vote, it attracted the largest response of any special election in Dade County's history, passing by a more than 2-to-1 margin.
Save Our Children was the first organized opposition to the gay rights movement, whose beginnings were traced to the Stonewall riots in 1969. The defeat of the ordinance encouraged groups in other cities to attempt to overturn similar laws. In the next year voters in St. Paul, Minnesota; Wichita, Kansas; and Eugene, Oregon, overturned ordinances in those cities, sharing many of the same campaign strategies that were used in Miami. Save Our Children was also involved in Seattle, Washington, where they were unsuccessful, and heavily influenced Proposition 6, a proposed state law in California that would have made the firing of openlygay public school employees mandatory, which was rejected by California voters in 1978. (Full article...)