California Proposition 6, informally known as the Briggs Initiative, was a ballot initiative put to a referendum on the California state ballot in the November 7, 1978 election. It was sponsored by John Briggs, a conservative state legislator from Orange County. The failed initiative sought to ban gays and lesbians from working in California's public schools. Openly gay San Francisco politician Harvey Milk and Sally Miller Gearhart, as well as many other LGBT activists of the time were instrumental in fighting the measure. Opposition to the proposition from a variety of public figures such as then former California Governor Ronald Reagan to President Jimmy Carter helped to swing public opinion against it. Background Singer and Florida Citrus Commission spokesperson Anita Bryant received national news coverage for her successful efforts to repeal a Dade County, Florida, ordinance preventing discrimination based on sexual orientation. This success sparked additional efforts to repeal legislation that added sexual orientation or preference as a protected group to anti-discrimination statutes and codes. In a step beyond repeal of anti-discrimination measures, Oklahoma and Arkansas banned gays and lesbians from teaching in public schools. The idea for the Briggs Initiative was formed during the success of the repeal of the Dade County anti-discrimination language. The measure was the first attempt to restrict gay and lesbian rights through a statewide ballot measure. Text The initiative provided that a public school teacher, teacher's aide, administrator, or counselor could be fired if the employee was found to have engaged in either (1) "public homosexual activity," which the initiative defined as an act of homosexual sex which was "not discreet and not practiced in private, whether or not such act, at the time of its commission, constituted a crime," or (2) "public homosexual conduct," which the initiative defined as "the advocating, soliciting, imposing, encouraging or promoting of private or public homosexual activity directed at, or likely to come to the attention of, schoolchildren and/or other employees." The employee would be terminated if the school board, after a hearing, determined by a preponderance of the evidence that the employee had engaged in "public homosexual activity" or "public homosexual conduct" and "that said activity or conduct render[ed] the employee unfit for service." The factors that the board would consider in the determination of "unfitness for service" would "include, but not be limited to: (1) the likelihood that the activity or conduct may adversely affect students