This interview ran in OutSmart magazine, September 15, 1995.


Exactly 76 years earlier than Candace Gingrich was born (June 2, 1966), gossip columnist Hedda Hopper—who was as famous for her gossip as she was for the hats she wore—was born (June 2, 1890). And the same year that Gingrich was born, Hopper died! Coincidence? Yeah, for sure, but a great piece of trivia for trivia's sake.

Candace Gingrich is not famous for gossip or hats; however, she and I did gossip (a little), and her hair does make an attractive substitute for a hat. Professionally dressed, she met me at the OutSmart offices at 8:00 a.m. sharp. She had already had a much earlier interview at a local TV station and would have another one at 9:00 a.m. around the corner at KLOL radio. After the earlier one and before our interview, Gingrich and her driver had stopped for breakfast at a local restaurant because "we saw all those pink triangles."

Her schedule is apparently hectic, with interviews starting in the wee hours of the morning and ending in the afternoon—similar to her early childhood schedule, moving on the average of every other year. Because her father was in the military, she lived in Pennsylvania, California, Panama, and Kansas. "But when I was eight, my dad retired," she says, "and we all moved back and settled in Harrisburg [Pennsylvania]." Her two sisters (one 16 years older, the other 18 years older) had already settled there. Her half brother, Newt Gingrich, now speaker of the House, had already gone out on his own (he's 23 years older than Candace). So, in a sense, Gingrich was an only child, because her sisters had been with her for only the first few years of her life.

Gingrich calls Newt her brother because half brother "only became an issue when he became speaker of the House. We've never said 'half' or 'step,'" she says, "because he was literally the first child in the family. So when the other children came along after that, we didn't even know, and when we did find out, he was already our brother."

While growing up, Gingrich was becoming somewhat aware of her lesbianism. "I had clues," she confesses, "but nowhere to go with the clues—being in Girl Scout camp at age 11 and finding one of the girls cute, going to field hockey camp and thinking the captain is attractive, but knowing I could never say anything." In high school and college, she was closer to realizing her homosexuality. She knew that a lot of her friends who were teachers were also lesbians, "but it's not like we talked about it either. I think they still felt, because of their positions and jobs, that they couldn't talk about it to anyone."

What turned things around for Gingrich was joining the rugby team in her third year of college. "There were some women on the team who were out and proud, and they were comfortable," she admits, "and it just took being with them and being in that atmosphere for me to realize that that was that thing I was on the verge of for so long."

But there was an incident that happened within the rugby team that was the turning point in her life. The president of the team, a straight woman named Stacy, challenged the captain of the team, a lesbian named Sherry. Stacy wanted control of the team and felt she should be leading the team; she said that there were lesbians on the team who held hands and kissed at parties. "This was an incident where we had to support our captain," says Gingrich. "We rallied behind Sherry. We were committed because we weren't gonna put up with that. And I think that really had an effect on finalizing my realization that it was okay, so okay that nobody's gonna deny my right to be who I am."

The story had a happy ending for Sherry also. It was decided that Stacy was the one with the problem, and that if she couldn't deal with lesbian teammates, she should exit the team. And if that wasn't enough, Gingrich declares, "Stacy was embezzling our funds along with the captain of the men's team!"

Gingrich is now [1995] national spokesperson for the Human Rights Campaign Fund's (HRCF) [the "Fund" has been dropped] National Coming Out Project. She is presently on a nationwide tour, according to a HRCF press release, to promote "the values of honesty and openness about being lesbian or gay, and urging people to get involved in the effort to educate Congress about the problem of discrimination and lack of equal rights for gay and lesbian Americans."

"The tour has been incredible," Gingrich says. "I'm meeting a lot of gays and lesbians who don't realize what we're denied. I tell them, 'You can be fired just for being gay.' And they say, 'No. No, this is America. That doesn't happen here.' To know that I'm educating them as well as the general population, who doesn't realize that, I think it's making a difference." Gingrich is aware that thousands of people hear and/or read what she says—"No, it's not SPECIAL rights we want, it's EQUAL rights." She only hopes that "that wipes out a good bit of the propaganda that the radical right has been trying to spread."

Gingrich will be involved in our nation's upcoming Coming Out Day on October 11, 1995. Last year there were over 300 events across the country; many more are expected this year. She will also be appearing in Dallas on October 8 because, Gingrich reveals, "the local groups have contracted with the state fair people to have a gay day on Sunday at the Texas State Fair."

From statewide events to nationwide television, Gingrich is on the move. I begin the interview by talking to her about one of her mother's comments about her in a recent profile of Gingrich on NBC-TV.

Blase DiStefano: On PrimeTime Live, your mother was asked, "Do you ever look at Candy and say, 'How in the world could a liberal Democrat, lesbian daughter come out of this conservative Republican family?'" She answered, "That Democrat, though, that's the part that slayed me." [Laughter from both] That was such a wonderful answer. It sounds like she accepts your homosexuality.
Candace Gingrich: She does. I think to some extent there's a lot that she still doesn't understand, because truly when she was growing up, it wasn't talked about or seen in the media, but it was still there. So, yeah, pretty much from day one, anything else that they knew about me, it was like, "Okay, everyone, Candace is a lesbian"—fact, poof. "So if we're having a family dinner, Candace will be bringing a WOMAN with her." I've never encountered any difficulties with them. It's only the Democrat part she has a problem with.

Was it the same for your father?
My dad's a Reagan Democrat, so as far as the Democrat part goes, he doesn't have anything ill to say about me, because he was a Democrat up until 1980 or so. And we never talked about my being lesbian. In my eyes, I see it as a typical father/daughter relationship. We did stuff together—we went fishing, we watched football—but it's not like if I had a problem, I would talk to him about it.

And that's why PFLAG [Parents and Friends of Lesbians And Gays] is so great. Parents go through their own coming out process—"Do we tell our friends, do we not tell our friends?" "Is it our fault, isn't our fault?" With that kind of stuff, PFLAG has really made a difference. In every city I've gone to so far, whether it's Columbia, South Carolina or Baton Rouge, Louisiana, PFLAG parents are always there, and they're always so happy that I'm doing what I'm doing.

Coming out seems to be a pretty slow process sometimes.
It is. Well, when you get messages from age zero that gays are bad, evil, and wrong, it's a self-fulfilling prophecy that some people can't help but believe it themselves.

There are a lot of parents nowadays who are really cool about all this, though many people say they don't think it's getting better for gays.
I think it definitely is. It's a matter of education and helping. I know when I had that initial discussion with my mom, the things she said to me were echoing the prevailing stereotypes and myths: What did your father and I do wrong? She actually said that. It just takes time, so we can get them to understand that there's nothing wrong.

Did religion play a part in any of this?
Not that I was aware of. My mom still goes to church every Sunday, and I used to when I was growing up, but I'm not a religious person. I just remember going to church—that was what we did. It was Sunday, you go to church.

Not being religious, are you in the least bit spiritual?
I believe in myself. But I guess I'm borderline agnostic. Probably more toward the atheist side if anything. But that's just me. I kinda think that if there's a higher being, they're either really mean of they don't give a crap, or they'd be doing something by now.

Are your friends religious?
The majority of my friends are kind of nondenominational. I know they have their own beliefs, and some of them do go to church, but most of us don't, but that's a very large generalization about my friends. For a lot of them, it's not any kind of shunning of the church. It's not "I don't go to church because they don't accept me," it's just a lot of them don't go anymore. If anything, I probably have more friends who are into a Zen philosophy on things.

Were you out before your brother's popularity?
Well, you'll have to explain that. A lot of people would argue as to whether he's popular or not.

[Laughs] Maybe I should have used a different word.
Do you mean since he was in office or since he became speaker.

Speaker.
Oh, okay. I was out in the community somewhat, pretty much out to my family, out to my friends, out at work. But I didn't really take it any further than that. I never went to any protests, I never lobbied, I never did anything that would put me out there.

By your brother doing this, I imagine it's really been good for you in the sense that being an out lesbian has pushed you to become more political.
It's a wonderful thing. I'm very happy about it, Blase. I'm so happy. Sometimes that's how I open when I do my town hall and talk about my story. I was just an average apathetic lesbian. There was some degree of not wanting to piss my family off that I was very aware of. They never said to me, "Keep quiet, we don't want people knowing you're a lesbian," but I still felt that.

Plus, I was apathetic; I wasn't worried at all as far as any more rights being taken away. I had seen things happen in the 103rd Congress, challenges to things that I was concerned about and then saw them either upheld or not passed, like Sen. Jesse Helms' [R-N.C.] amendments. That all changed in November [1994] because the Democrats weren't in power anymore, so to speak.

And anytime you get Helms being the chair of any committee, I don't think it's good for us. So it was kind of twofold: that really opened my eyes, and because of that my brother became speaker, and if my brother hadn't become speaker, the reporter would never have come and asked me if I was gay, and I would never have had a chance to do what I'm doing.

It was similar to the Anita Bryant ruckus in the '70s—because of her homophobia, hundreds of gay people here in Houston got together to march in protest of her visit here. It's almost like, "Thank you for being so homophobic."
Seriously, I almost wanted to thank Jesse Helms for saying that crap about a need for more money for a disease that people brought upon themselves for their deliberate disgusting behavior [the Ryan White bill]. Thank you, Jesse, thank you very much. Jesse, who's the bill named after? So, it was like thank you for being a jerk, and thank you for showing everyone else that you're a jerk—WE already knew that.

Because there are all these jerks, it helps us to actually push forward.
It's a sad dance to be dancing.

The radical right has done a good job, haven't they?
It's frightening. I still don't think that I could sit here comfortably and say, "I'm an inspiration to people." But I think people do see themselves in me. A lot of people think that someone else is gonna take care of things for them—"I don't need to get involved; these other people are doing it." When people realize that just sending one letter to their member of congress, in the congressperson's eyes, he or she sees a thousand constituents in that one letter, it really makes a difference.

It's really important that we keep an open dialogue with the people that are making laws for us. Anybody that's making decisions that affect your life, you need to be talking to them. When we had Harrisburg Pride, where I'm from originally, I told the crowd, "Look, you have two senators in this state [Pennsylvania]. Senator Arlen Specter is a Republican candidate for president, and no matter what your thoughts are of him, he's got a 70-percent voting record on gay issues. He voted the right way on everything on Ryan White. Our other senator, Senator Rick Santorum, voted with Jesse Helms up until the very end. Do you like that? Do you like having a senator represent you that way? If not, write a couple of lines. "Dear Senator, I don't appreciate your voting with Mr. Helms. He's a bigoted, prejudiced man, and I would appreciate it if you wouldn't side with him anymore. Your constituent." People forget—and politicians forget sometimes too—that they're working for us. We're their bosses.

Are there any statistics that show how many people might come out on any given Coming Out Day?
I don't think so. I think HRCF formulated the project so that people would think about and realize how important it is to come out every day or at least think about it. We do actually come out every day—when you meet someone new, do they know, should we tell them, that kind of stuff. And it really helps to come out to people. When you put a face to discrimination, it's not just, "Oh, gay people can lose their jobs." It's like, "Bob, my neighbor, can lose his job," of Jill at the gas station or whatever.

And then you'll tell some friends, and they'll say, "Well, I knew, but I was just waiting for you to talk to me about it." When I came out, I went back home to my friends and told them, and they basically said, "Well, it's about time."

Now let's play pretend. Let's make believe that the next president has to be a woman, and it's your choice. Who would she be?
Last time I was asked that question, I said Ann Richards [former governor of Texas].

Is your answer different now?
If I have to pick a woman and put her in office, she doesn't necessarily have to be a politician. I think Alice Walker [Pulitzer Prize-winner and author of The Color Purple] would make a really good president. She probably wouldn't enjoy it, but she would be good.

There was a period some time ago when I thought Barbara Jordan [former U.S. representative] would make a great president.
The woman I was discussing this with (when I said Ann Richards) also said Barbara Jordan. I thought that was a really good answer. So, we could have an Ann Richards/Alice Walker ticket.

Well, let's pretend the vice president has to be a male politician.
Well, I think that Al Gore would make a very good vice president; I think he already makes a very good vice president. And in some ways, he's been more attentive to the gay community than the president has. I think he's a very compassionate and caring guy.

Do you think that because he's the vice president, he has the luxury to be more compassionate? If you're the president, you have to be more cautious.
That's possible, but from all that I've heard, that's pretty much the way he was before he became vice president. But you're right, becoming a president, I'm sure changes a lot of stuff . . .

Can you imagine!? You really have to be a politician. When you're president, all you think about must be . . .
[Together] . . . pleasing everybody in the country.

President Clinton's done more than most.
Yeah, he has. But the problem is that although the majority of the country is for equal rights, the radical right people have so much damn power that they control people. It's very scary.

Speaking of controlling people, I guess we really haven't touched on your brother that much.
It was going so good, Blase. We didn't have to talk about him at all, but NOOOOO.

My God, I have to get at least ONE quote!
I don't know if he wears boxers or briefs. I really don't.

Oh, what a bummer. You really don't know?
No, I don't.

And God knows, he's not gonna tell us.
For some reason, I think he wears boxers, but I'm not sure.

This is kind of interesting, because when President Clinton was asked that question on MTV, he said boxers. I asked Todd Haynes, a director I recently interviewed, if he wore boxers, briefs, or nothing, and he said something like, "That depends, is that during the day or at night?"
Much better than Newt's response when he was asked [also on MTV]. He does that all the time, and that bothers me.

Do you know what that might be about? Is there no sense of humor about the situation or did he feel that . . .
I think that sometimes he just doesn't have a sense of humor about things. In the past six months or so, or since he's become speaker, I can't even count anymore how many times he's said to reporters, "That's a stupid question. That's a dumb question. You should be ashamed. You should be embarrassed." Saying those things to reporters . . .

...Even when it's not about boxers or briefs. In effect, it probably IS a stupid question, but it's a fun question.
The press is the press. You have fun with them, they have fun with you. It's MTV, Newt. It's not Lawrence Welk, it's not The 700 Club, it's MTV.

I recently heard someone say that maybe the reason Newt didn't want to answer that question is because he wears ladies' lace panties.
Maybe something from Victoria's Secret. Believe me, if I knew that, the whole world would know!

For more information
on the Human Rights Campaign,
call 1-800-572-HRCF
or write P.O. Box 96446,
Washington, D.C. 20077-7308.

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