Photo Illustration by Elizabeth Brockway/The Daily Beast/Getty/Reuters
About a decade before Moms for Liberty co-founder Bridget Ziegler championed Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” law, she was a Sarasota socialite who partied with a coterie of gay friends.
One of those pals, Nishit Patel, remembers a magical night in the early 2010s when they whooped it up at her parents’ house while the adults were away, swimming in the pool and singing and dancing in her mother’s furs. “That was Bridget,” Patel said of the now-41-year-old conservative education activist. “She was really, really sweet and kind.”
“From the very get-go, we hit it off,” Patel said. “Of course the gay guy is going to gravitate toward the gorgeous blonde.”