We both grew up as Army brats, though he I think traveled a little bit more than I did -- my dad retired [from the Army] when I was 8. Being a military brat, the way I've always looked at it is, you get plopped down every couple of years in a new environment and you have choices. Either you allow yourself to be the new kid and fade into the background, or you develop more extroverted qualities. I know myself, and I think also Newt and my sisters to an extent, more adopted that [latter course].

Is it true, as has been reported, that Newt didn't get along with your dad?

I've read that too, but I don't have firsthand knowledge. My dad was an Army guy and so very strict and very clear and transparent about what he expected of people. I know there are times I disappointed him.

Have you and Newt gotten to know each other as adults?

Where things started to change was when he got married to Callista, and also when I began dating and then married my wife. There are some similarities [between the two spouses] -- they're both very family-oriented kind of people. Callista makes the effort to stay engaged and it's the same with my wife. Before we got married over the summer [of 2009], we had a barbecue, and [my wife's] parents came in from Columbus, my sister and my nieces came from Harrisburg, and Callista and Newt came to the barbecue so that the families could meet each other. I don't know if 15 years ago that would have happened. In the past 9 or 10 years we've seen each other more and been invited to more things I'm not sure we would have before.

You had two coming out experiences -- one to your family and another as a public figure in opposition to your brother. What were those experiences like?

My first coming-out, it took me 20, 21 years to get to the point where I could accept who I was and say who I was. I came out to my mother first, as an adult. I was in college, living at home over the summer, and my mom found a lesbian newsletter and brought it to me -- 'Are you trying to tell me something?'

When we were done having our conversation, my mom said, 'You're going to have to give your dad and I time to get used to this, because when we were growing up we didn't have gay people.' I was like, mmm, maybe color TV, maybe microwaves, Mom, but there were gay people when you were growing up. You just didn't know they were gay people.

As luck would have it, my mom was very efficient and quickly told everybody else in the family for me, which was fine -- I didn't really relish the idea of calling everybody up and telling them. My sisters had stayed in the Harrisburg area, so even though there were 16 and 18 years between us, we knew each other a lot better.

At that time Newt was a congressman from Georgia, and I figured if anyone was going to have something to say about me being a lesbian, it would be him. I asked my mom, 'What did he say?' She said he said, 'Well, it's Candy's life, and she has the right to live the way that she wants to.' And that was that, and I thought, all right, cool. And that's what I did.