Letter to Anita

Filmmaker Andrea Meyerson revisits Anita Bryant's late 1970s anti-gay campaign, through the eyes of Ronni Sanlo, in the hour-long documentary "Letter to Anita."

Although gay rights gained ground after the Stonewall riots in 1969 and the American Psychological Association delisted homosexuality as a mental health disorder in 1973, Sanlo came out as a lesbian (at a NOW meeting) just as former Miss Oklahoma and Florida Citrus shill Bryant created her gay-bashing "Save Our Children" coalition, which pressured the state to pass legislation forbidding homosexuals from being parents. The laws, along with Sanlo's conservative ex-husband, took custody from her and forbade her from seeing her young son and daughter starting in March 1979.

Since Sanlo had a job as an AIDS epidemiology surveillance officer, her children were told that she had the disease, and if they touched her they would die. To process her hostility toward Bryant, Sanlo wrote a letter to Bryant in 2009, which is read in the documentary by Emmy Award-winner Meredith Baxter.

Dr. Sanlo also became a gay rights activist, and is filmed reviewing newspaper archives at the time, including then-Governor Askew's support of the discrimination (which was eventually declared unconstitutional from a free speech standpoint), the publication of the "purple pamphlet" (which described and diagrammed "the nature and scope of homosexuality"), and the passage of the Bush-Trask amendment (which outlawed gay student organizations in colleges).

Not invited to any of her children's activities and unable to see them, Sanlo left Florida and moved to Ann Arbor, Michigan, to inaugurate the campus' lesbian and gay office in May 1994, initiating events such as the "purple graduation" for LGBTQ students in 1995.

In 1997, Sanlo become Center Director of UCLA's lesbian and gay center. She also reconnected with her adult daughter and her son, who was disowned by his father when he came out as gay. "So much for Christian love," she said. "And for my son's grandmother, who choreographed the hate in his home."

Bryant's son Robert Green attends one of Sanlo's speeches in the film, and says he felt used by his mother in her witch-hunts. Yet, Sanlo's letter ends with gratitude for Bryant. "She galvanized the gay rights movement more than Stonewall," she said.

Green gave the letter to his mother in 2013. Bryant said she would meet Sanlo, but has cancelled on her three times. She has yet to reschedule.

For information on screenings, visit http://www.familyuntiedmovie.com