Orange Juice

First there was Anita Bryant and now Alex Jones, both homophobes linked to orange juice.  We need to thank Sergio Candido for his alert reporting in the South Florida Gay News on January 25, 2013 that we can't let our guard down when it comes to Florida orange juice.

Alex Jones, we are told by Sergio and Wikipedia, is an ultra-conservative radio host who is popular in the USA with his conspiracy theories.  His latest is that the US government (that is, President Obama) "is encouraging homosexuality with chemicals so that people don't have children."  To prove his point Jones took apart an orange juice box to show the plastic membrane inside "filled with gay chemicals".  The chemical was identified on another post by Jones as atrazine.  Atrazine is a common weed killer that has been studied for its effects on the sexuality of certain fish and frogs.  Jones says on one of his blogs that "little boys drink orange juice ... and they want to put on lipstick", which presumably means that when they become big boys they won't breed.

That rang a bell.

Back in 1977 singer and Florida orange juice spokesperson Anita Bryant launched a campaign to repeal Dade County Florida civil rights laws for gay persons.  This, ironically, led to greater momentum by the gay-rights movement as gay groups unified to oppose this oppressive campaign by Bryant and right-wing Christians.

I'm so glad to live in Chiang Mai, Thailand where we get our oranges fresh from Fang, north of the city, where there has never been a hint that they have any impact on human sexual orientation or human rights.