There is an air of inevitability now. Gay rights may be delayed for a time, but will not be denied in perpetuity. When we, or our children, look back at the closed mindedness of today's bigotry, they may find that the real turning point was not in Massachusetts, Connecticut, Maine, or even Iowa.

Legal marriage for gays in those states is important. But I suspect the beginning of acceptance came in Dade County Florida a generation ago. Like a recent California beauty queen the beauty of the day had been a state winner. She was Miss Oklahoma and came in second in the Miss America beauty pageant of 1959.

In 1977 Dade County passed an ordinance barring discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. Anita Bryant, by then a singer and spokesperson for Florida Orange Juice, devoted herself to defeating the outrageous endorsement of sexual perversion. She started a group that she called Save Our Children. "What these people really want, hidden behind obscure legal phrases, is the legal right to propose to our children that theirs is an acceptable alternate way of life." She vowed to "lead such a crusade to stop it as this country has not seen before." Jerry Falwell traveled to the Sunshine state to join the crusade. She called upon God to help with the struggle.

And for a while, it looked as if God had smiled upon the movement. Anti-gay laws hit the books in Florida, California, Minnesota, Kansas, and Oregon. But then, she was hit with the public relations equivalent of a nuclear explosion. Folks began making fun of her.

The "Anita Bryant", a vodka - apple juice mix, replaced the orange juice screwdriver in gay bars, then became popular everywhere. When a minor catastrophe happened, Johnny Carson assured his audience it was not an Act of God. "Anita Bryant wouldn't give him the time off." Others joined in. She became a laughably prim Church Lady, Archie Bunker in drag. She lost her Orange juice role, then her marriage. Intolerant bluenoses of the religious right turned on her for being divorced.

I had never seriously thought about the proposition that gay people should be accorded the same dignity and respect as other human beings. They were perverts and that was that. What was there to consider? In retrospect, it may well have been the accidental prominence of Miss Bryant that changed all that. I joined with many others in questioning, perhaps for the first time, the social disdain with which we had so thoughtlessly isolated gay people. Consciousness was raised. "I used to despise those people," said a friend. "She makes me want to be one of them."

That was three decades ago. There is still a long way to go. Anita Bryant lives quietly in Oklahoma but Miss California lends new inspiration.

Victory may not be all that near, but today we can see it clearly, very clearly, on the distant horizon.