'Enough! Enough! Enough!'

Resplendent in a powder-blue dress, her red hair immaculately coiffed, the woman of the hour flashed a dazzling smile of triumph. "The 'normal majority' have said, "Enough! Enough! Enough!' " Singer Anita Bryant told cheering supporters and newsmen in Miami Beach. "Tonight, the laws of God and the cultural values of men have been vindicated." By a smashing 2-t01 majority, the voters of Dade County had just endorsed Bryant's fervent crusade for the repeal of an ordinance outlawing discrimination against homosexuals in housing, unemployment and public accommodations. To celebrate their victory in last week's referendum, Bryant and Husband Bob Green smooched for newsmen. Said he: "This is what heterosexuals do, fellows."

Bitter Fight. So ended the emotion-laden fight over a local statute that had become the focus of the homosexual rights struggle nationwide. The battle to repudiate the county's lawmakers was involved. Bryant's Save Our Children, Inc. rallied some 3,000 volunteers, who rang bells, sent out mailings, manned phones and chauffeured the elderly to the polls. The association won the support of a key conservative rabbi, fundamentalist Protestant clergymen and Roman Catholic Archbishop Coleman F. Carroll, who wrote an anti-statute message that was read to the faithful at Masses. In addition, the local TV stations, the Miami News and the Miami Herald opposed the ordinance.

Leading the crusade, Bryant argued that the statute condoned homosexuality, which she claimed was against God's law. The mother of four children, Bryant scored most heavily when she claimed that the ordinance would force principals to hire homosexual teachers who could lead their pupils astray.

In conservative, middle-class neighborhoods, in fundamentalist communities and in the family-oriented Cuban sections, Bryant and her legions pressed their fight in more graphic terms. She told a gathering of Cubans, "It would break my heart if Miami would become another Sodom and Gomorrah and you would have to leave again." Full-page newspaper ads bought by the association suggested that an epidemic of child pornography might result if the voters approved the ordinance.

Miami's homosexual activists--who organized well themselves--also overdramatized their case. Some gays attached pink triangles to their clothes, reminiscent of the yellow star that Jews were forced to wear in Hitler's Germany. This tactic backfired badly.

In essence, the gay rights leaders failed to convince the voters that defense of the ordinance was a human rights issue that needed legal protection. Admitted Attorney Marshall Harris, a pro-ordinance Democratic Party activist: "Most people saw it as a vote on moral decline, life-style and permissiveness--not human rights."

At election-night rallies in the fashionable Fontainebleau and Dupont Plaza hotels, gay leaders were defiant and angry in defeat. Some homosexuals hugged and kissed in front of the cameras. One of the leaders was Leonard Matlovich, a Viet Nam War hero and the former Air Force sergeant who deliberately provoked a discharge in 1975 to challenge the service's right to dismiss a man for homosexuality (TIME cover. Sept. 8. 1975). Matlovich led a crowd of followers singing a version of We Shall Overcome and launched into Anita Bryant's favorite tune. Battle Hymn of the Republic.

Many gay leaders claimed that Bryant had united them for the first time--the battle, they said, was "the Selma" of the movement.* Sergeant Matlovich, however, warned that "stormy times are ahead. I fear repression. Some gays are going to have to be prepared to make sacrifices--even die."

Across the country, gay communities responded to the Miami defeat with angry marches. In San Francisco, 5,000 activists staged a noisy, impromptu three-hour parade downtown after hearing of the loss. In Chicago, about 175 men and women held a candlelight vigil at midnight. In New York, hundreds of homosexuals marched through Greenwich Village for two straight nights shouting "Gay rights now!" On both evenings, former Congresswoman Bella Abzug, who is running for mayor, calmed the crowds. Abzug, who supports the movement, urged the demonstrators to go home and get some rest: "It's a long fight. You have to continue fighting tomorrow and the next day."

New Vigor. Gay activists plan to press their drive for full civil rights with new vigor, posing complex legal and moral problems for the courts and lawmakers. So far, the loss seems to have had no effect on a bill breezing through the liberal Massachusetts legislature that would outlaw discrimination against gays in public employment. If enacted the measure would be the first such state law in the nation. In Washington, Congressman Edward Koch, who represents Greenwich Village, has rounded up 38 sponsors for a federal gay rights bill, but is skeptical of its prospects. Last week's vote didn't help. Says Koch: "Congress will not take action before cities and counties throughout America enact legislation."

Anita Bryant and her troops, meantime, are preparing to broaden their Save Our Children movement beyond Miami. Bryant is weighing the possibility of opening a Washington office for her crusade and may barnstorm the country to oppose gay rights ordinances.

At week's end 28 members of the board of directors of the National Gay Task Force, representing a number of homosexual organizations throughout the country, met in New York City to plot a nationwide strategy. Activists in San Francisco, Chicago, New York, New Orleans, Houston and San Antonio were ready to picket Bryant if she turned up.

An unpleasant indication of what could lie ahead for the singer occurred the day after her victory in Miami when she appeared in a religious crusade in Norfolk, Va. Some 100 gay righters hooted with derision and noisily left after she read biblical passages that condemned homosexuals as sinners. Bryant wept with frustration. She urged the homosexuals to repent, saying that she too had been a sinner, but was saved by the grace of God. Clearly, neither side was prepared to listen to--let alone heed --the other.

* In 1965 state troopers clashed violently with civil rights marchers in Selma, Ala., and gave the black rights crusade a rallying cry

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