Candace Gingrich, lesbian speaker for the Human Rights Campaign and half-sister of U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich, said the best way to foster education is for gays to “come out.”

Gingrich delivered her speech, “Family Matter,” Wednesday night in the Great Hall of the Memorial Union.

After an introduction by Kevin Sime, National Coming Out Day coordinator for ISU, Gingrich explained how coming out for gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgenders is more of a “coming out project because we have to come out every day.”

Gingrich described her three most important “coming out” experiences.

* The first coming out experience Gingrich said she had was when she was in college. She said she played rugby and knew some of the women on the team were lesbians and they were out and proud of who they were. Gingrich said after she came out she felt comfortable and sensed a kind of enlightenment.

“A light shone upon me and I thought it was an angel, or maybe it was k.d. lang,” she said.

* Gingrich’s second coming out experience was to her family. She was at home and her mother found an issue of the Lavender Letter, a lesbian magazine. Gingrich said her mother asked her if she was trying to tell her something and Gingrich said she responded by saying, “Yes. I am a lesbian.”

Gingrich said her mother asked her if it was a phase. She said her mother and father wanted to know what they had done wrong and said “maybe you just haven’t met the right man.”

* The third coming out experience for Gingrich was when she became politically active about a week after Newt Gingrich was elected as Speaker of the House.

Gingrich said an Associated Press reporter was doing an interview with her mother. Gingrich’s mother showed the reporter a picture of Gingrich when she had a crew cut.

The next day, the reporter called Gingrich and asked for an interview. At the end of the interview the reporter said, “I have one more question and I think you know what it is. Are you gay?”

“Yes. I am, ” Gingrich said she responded.

‘Action needed’

Gingrich said the gay community needs to be open and honest so it can educate other people.

“If we don’t teach them, then people might believe the myths,” she said.

As a political activist, Gingrich has been to about 50 cities, becoming “the poster child” for the Human Rights Campaign, she said.

Gingrich said there is authentic discrimination against the gay community. She said in 41 states it is legal to fire someone for sexual orientation and to refuse people hospital beds based on sexual orientation. Organizations don’t need proof of sexual orientation … they are allowed to go on assumptions or rumors, she said.

One example of discrimination, Gingrich said, was a man named Kelly Kerby from Tulsa, Okla., who was fired because he was gay.

A day before Kerby was fired, he was given a 10 percent raise, she said. The next day someone saw his car outside of an AIDS Memorial Service. His boss asked for his resignation saying, “‘I’m not willing to say, but you know why,'” Gingrich said.

‘Make a difference’

“Coming out makes a pronounced difference,” Gingrich said. “If we can’t come out, I hope we can at least start speaking the truth.”

The National Psychological Association has documented that sexual orientation is formed at a young age and can’t be changed, she said.

Gingrich said everyone has the power to do something about discrimination because everyone, of age, can vote. And everyone, of any age, can write a letter to their Congressional representatives, she said.

Gingrich added that she has never regretted her decision to come out.

She said: “Honesty is the best policy … whether you’re the Speaker of the House, or just a member of the family.”