Anti-Gay GOP

F - ANDR GAY Gop Copyright 1994 News World Communications, Inc. The Washington Times November 24, 1994, Thursday, Final Edition SECTION: Part A; NATION; Pg. A3 LENGTH: 791 words HEADLINE: Gingrich: Gays are welcome ; Urges party to be tolerant but decries same-sex 'marriages' BYLINE: Joyce Price; THE WASHINGTON TIMES BODY: Incoming House Speaker Newt Gingrich says the Republican Party should be open to homosexuals but believes it is "madness" to call same-sex couples a family. The party's position on homosexuality "should be toleration. It should not be promotion and it should not be condemnation," the Georgia Republican says in an interview appearing in tomorrow's edition of the Washington Blade, a newspaper for homosexuals. "I don't want to see police in the men's room, which we had when I was a child, and I don't want to see trying to educate kindergartners in understanding gay couples," Mr. Gingrich says. "I think both approaches are fundamentally and profoundly wrong. I think where we're moving towards - as a society and in our [party's] position - is that consenting adults can have private relations without in any way the political system being involved." But he adds: "It is madness to pretend that families are anything other than heterosexual couples. I think it goes to the core of how civilization functions." "Over time, we want to have an explicit bias in favor of heterosexual marriage," he says. "If you look at the pathologies and weaknesses of America today, re-establishing the centrality of marriage and of the role of a male and female in that relationship is a very central issue of the next 20 years." The Washington Times, November 24, 1994