At appearances in Chicago on March 28 and 29 on WGN Morning News and Lesbigay Radio and in meetings with interviewers from the print media, Candace Gingrich and Betty DeGeneres talked about the Millennium March on Washington, to be held Sunday, April 30. The women were here on behalf of the Human Rights Campaign, for which Gingrich is the National Coming Out Project Manager and DeGeneres is the Spokeswoman for the same project.
Both women are enthusiastic about the March. "It's an important time for us to come together to celebrate our gay families and for them to celebrate themselves and to be visible and to let our support be visible for them," says DeGeneres. And Gingrich talks at length about the many facets of the March event as a whole, including the related two—day street festival and the "child—friendly Family Garden," which will feature activities for children of all ages. But Gingrich cites getting the gay/gay—friendly vote out in the 2000 elections as the key agenda of the March, as a way to address many of the other platforms of the March, such as health care, hate crimes, and so on. When asked about the criticisms leveled against the March organizers, Gingrich concedes that, "in the calling in the original organization of the March, I think people have acknowledged it probably wasn't done the way that it should have been or the best way that it could have been, but the March organizers have taken steps to try to rectify what have been seen as the wrong way to go about things.
"Yes we do need to concentrate on and be involved in the local and the state level," she goes on, "but I hope folks don't lose sight of the fact that we have made huge progress in the last eight years and to think about what having somebody who's not for gays in the White House will be like—it will impact everybody at the local and the state and the national level. With the enthusiasm that will be generated by the March, state and local organizations are going to benefit from it. I don't think it's ever an either/or with something like that."
Gingrich, half—sister to former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, and DeGeneres, mother of lesbian comedian Ellen DeGeneres, both found their way into activism on behalf of the gay and lesbian community by accident, as a result of their originally more famous relations. Both women, however, relish their new—found roles and wouldn't have it any other way. "It's made me a better person . . . broadened my horizons," says DeGeneres. Gingrich agrees, adding, "It's an opportunity I would have regretted not taking. Obviously, it feels good to do good, but to be able to speak to the issues, to be able to take advantage of the recognition my brother lent me . . . it would have been wrong to let it go by."
The two women each speak to a wide variety of groups, some predominately gay, some predominately straight, and both seem to especially enjoy speaking to students. One engagement that is memorable to DeGeneres, though, was a Social Security convocation on diversity in the workplace: "That was great because the audience seemed to be largely nongay and they were so accepting." Overall, however, Gingrich points out that while they hope what they are doing is making a difference, "You never really know what the end result is going to be. You just hope that you encourage someone—at least one person in that audience—to speak up or speak louder or get more involved."
Gingrich admits that she was also given pause about her work as National Coming Out Project Manager when Matthew Shepard was killed. "It really flustered me, because I've been encouraging people to come out, and maybe I haven't tempered that enough, helping them understand that it is a risk. . . . And yet if we don't come out, even more Matthew Shepard's will happen." DeGeneres, too, was shaken by Shepard's murder. "It was horrendous." She confesses, though: "In my naiveté, when it happened, I thought, 'Oh, well, now the religious right will see what they're causing with their hateful rhetoric and they'll stop.' That's how optimistic I was. And then Wyoming didn't even pass the hate crimes law including sexual orientation. It's obscene."
Hate crimes issues are just one of many reasons the two cite for their support of Al Gore. "I knew from the get—go," says Gingrich, "that I was going to be supporting Al Gore. It just seems so clear—cut to me, especially now that the nominations are wrapped up. It was such a difference this year, to see how the issues were handled—it wasn't like they only talked about [ gay and lesbian issues ] if somebody brought [ them ] up."
Gingrich's affiliation with the Democratic Party is something of an anomaly in her family. Her brother Newt, of course, is staunchly Republican, and she describes her mother as about as "dyed—in—the wool Republican as you can get" to this day. "When I first came out to the AP reporter, I think my mom, in particular, feared it was all a ploy to bring Newt down, that somehow I was a tool of the Democratic Party, but I think that as I explained things to her, as I became more aware myself, she got it. That it was about job discrimination. It was about hate crimes. . . . It wasn't just a him versus me thing. It was never a him versus me thing, even though that's what rose to the top of people's perceptions."
As to her famous brother, Gingrich says, "I think [ my relationship with him ] is better—he's more available. . . . This does not mean that we have in—depth conversations about gay rights. We're still working up to that. But just being able to interact with him more has been helpful. He seems like a different person. . . . He's a lot more relaxed. It hasn't resulted in any mind—changing yet, but the potential is much more there than it had been when he was still Speaker."
DeGeneres's celebrated kin is not a politician, of course, but a comedian. Betty DeGeneres has quipped that "if I had known my daughter was going to grow up to be Ellen DeGeneres, I would have taken more pictures." She had no inkling, she says, that Ellen would grow up to be so special. "She was funny, she had a great sense of humor, but so what? A lot of people do, and in our family, her older brother did—her older brother Vance is on Comedy Central. Their dad was very, very funny. . . . We laughed a lot. And the reason I said I would've taken more pictures is because everybody [ in the media now wants ] pictures of her, and she said we took more pictures of Vance than we took of her." Gingrich, laughing, identifies with Ellen's plight as the second child, saying that her mother took more pictures of Newt, too.
When the subject of Anne Heche, Ellen DeGeneres's partner, comes up, Betty DeGeneres says, "I call her my other daughter. I don't call myself a mother—in—law. They're just both really precious to me."
Besides their roles as activists, Gingrich and DeGeneres have each enjoyed their brief stints as sitcom guests. DeGeneres mentions that "I was the 'Where's Waldo' [ in Ellen's first show ] , I'd be in the background from time to timethat might happen again [ with her new show ] . I have no idea. Just whatever she says. It was fun." Gingrich points out that, up until Ellen's coming out show, the episode of Friends on which she played the minister who marries the character Ross's lesbian ex—wife and her partner had been the highest rated gay—themed show ever. "But I'm not bitter," Gingrich jokes, and DeGeneres offers to ask her daughter to find a role for Gingrich on her new show.
