‘GMA’ & ABC News Star Sara Haines on Why She’s Emcee of Songs in the Key of Equality Again

‘GMA’ STAR HOSTS SWISH BENEFIT: ‘Good Morning America’ & ABC News Correpspondent Sara Haines hosts Songs in the Key of Equality on May 19 at Le Poisson Rouge. Photo: ABCMedia.net

By Scott Harrah

Sara Haines, contributing correspondent for “Good Morning America” and ABC News, returns as emcee for this year’s Songs in the Key of Equality benefit for the Swish Ally Fund of the Stonewall Community Foundation on May 19, 2014 at Le Poisson Rouge (tickets available at  https://donate.swishpride.org/page/contribute/swish-concert-tickets). Anyone who was at last year’s event will tell you what a funny, vivacious host she was, but there’s much more to Sara Haines than a vibrant personality. Ms. Haines, a graduate of Smith College, is a strong advocate for LGBT causes because her brother is gay. She is also an outspoken nonconformist, and is currently planning a fall destination wedding with fiancé Max in the Bahamas.  As Sara herself will tell you, she is bucking nearly every wedding tradition imaginable to create a wedding that is as relaxed, unique and iconoclastic as she and Max are.

This is an exciting time of big changes for the Iowa native. Besides planning the big day, last summer she left NBC’s “Today Show” and friends Hoda Kotb and Kathie Lee Gifford after many years to join ABC News and “Good Morning America” and such stellar “GMA” news anchors as Robin Roberts, George Stephanopoulos, Amy Robach and Lara Spencer. Sara Haines is one of StageZine’s favorite TV personalities, and not simply because she’s great to interview and gives such complex, heady responses to every question. She is a straight woman who is not afraid to back the LGBT community however she can. We caught up with Sara Haines for the second time to chat about Swish, LGBT causes, her career and the reasons why she refuses to stand on ceremony as she and her fiancé plan their wedding.

STAGEZINE:  Sara, you’re hosting Songs in the Key of Equality once again. You were wonderful last year.  What do you love the most about being the emcee for this event?

SARA HAINES: I believe in this cause, the whole mission. I think the cherry on top is the product, an event you can believe in, from the people behind the scenes to the production that’s put on. It was my first time hosting Songs in the Key of Equality last year. I had no idea how above and beyond this event would go. Anyone who’s met Swish’s Executive Director, Sue Sena, knows that she’s truly an angel of change.  Just she alone makes you feel like you’re a part of something so massive.  But to see the faces, the names, the talent, the people that showed up to witness it, it’s bigger than you can describe. It’s truly an experience.

Swish is switching gears to become the Swish Ally Fund of the Stonewall Community Foundation.  Why do you think it’s important for everyone to support this cause?

There are so many organizations out there that are similar but are all scattered.  I think the idea of coming together as one just gives it more momentum and puts the support in a more direct way. Just by math alone, it shows the dollar goes further, the support goes further. That’s my understanding of why it’s such a big deal. It’s no longer a branch on the tree. It’s part of the trunk driving the tree. I think that’s huge because it’s such a graduation for a cause that’s built itself up over the last 11 years; it’s just making it stronger by joining the Stonewall community. My understanding is the support will go further with it standing behind the Stonewall Community Foundation because right now it’s a grassroots effort that’s grown and has its own momentum

Some people think LGBT nonprofits are losing focus and purpose because of all the progress that’s been made, but I feel it’s more important than ever to support these causes because the homophobia has not gone away and we can’t just be complacent.  What are your thoughts on this?

I completely agree.  As a woman, being part of a minority cause, I went to a women’s school.  Any time you get an organization that supports specific groups, you’re giving them a force they’re not getting naturally. Until 50 states have marriage equality, our mission is very clear and very big in front of us and it remains that way.  In the majority of states, LGBT people can’t even get married.  I disagree with people who say the LGBT cause is losing focus. Yes, progress has been made, but there’s so much further to go in regard to equality. Another thing is youth. We happen to be witnessing a time where maybe and hopefully young people who are coming out are having an easier time but that by no means says that we are standing on equal ground. It’s much further than it once was and it’s important to look at how much further it’s come. Yes, progress has been made but it’s also important to re avert your gaze and look at how much further we have to go. It’s at these times where people get comfortable and think the journey’s done.  This is definitely a marathon, not a sprint.

I think it’s similar to when civil rights first passed in the 1960s. That certainly did not mean that African Americans no longer encountered racism. They still do to this very day. I think it’s similar. Do you agree?

I totally agree. I think there’s a time where there was overt mistreatment.  Right now at the White House Correspondents’ Association 2014 Dinner, they were talking about the fact that it was originally a white male experience and women got in the door before blacks got in the door . We’re past segregation, bravo, that’s great, but now it’s more deceiving.  There was a joke made at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner that if Hillary Clinton became president, we’d only be able to pay her 30% less. Now there are so many battles being fought that it’s easier to identify than when there was violence or when it was blatant. Now those problems remain for women, blacks and gays, for everyone.  We’re at a great point where we can praise the movement for making some strides, but we’ve got a long way to go. So this is the time to push through.

You are a straight ally for LGBT causes.  Why do you think it’s so important for straight people to support the LGBT community?

At the end of the day, inequality is inequality. People are fighting every day for women to go further. I’m not someone who screams every day about inequality. I grew up in a generation where I don’t even realize sometimes that women are slighted. You don’t have to be the one being slighted to fight for a cause. If you see it, you have to do something, and be aware that inequalities are all around us. I hope we always fight for things that matter. To me, whether it’s about marriage equality or gays being treated equal, any group of people, we’re all the same when you strip it all down. So I think inequality is just not okay ever.  It’s that whole idea of it’s worse when you are aware of it and don’t do something than just not doing anything. We’re all aware of it. Once you’ve got your radar, there’s no forgiveness for not moving forward with that cause.

Let’s talk a bit about some of the exciting changes in your life.  You left NBC’s “Today Show” and moved to ABC’s “Good Morning America.”  Tell us about some of the great things you’re experiencing.

Oh, my gosh, I feel like my career is so different from what it once was. I miss every day the laughing and the occasional boozing on TV at NBC’s “Today Show.” Now I feel like, at ABC, I entered a boot camp of pre-season training. I never was trained to be a correspondent and the opportunity I’ve been given at ABC, in the trenches, learning on the job, I’ve had an amazing time and there are times when I come up for air and say, “What did I get myself into.” [Laughs.]

You recently got engaged.  Anything exciting you want to share with us about it?

We’ve bucked a lot of the traditions. We’re running a destination wedding and my brother is my man of honor.  If you want to make it philosophical, when you look at all these changes in the world and the very things we fight for at Swish and the fact that we’ve ripped down the whole tradition of marriage and what it should mean and what we want it to mean. Max [her fiancé] and I feel if you can’t explain why you do something, we don’t want to do it. The point has been that the traditions are outdated.  If there’s not a beautiful reason that makes sense or resonates with the couple, you shouldn’t do it.I’ve been laughing because every dress person I meet, every wedding planner, every bride’s magazine, everyone sits there with a dropped jaw when I say this. I didn’t realize how much I’d throw the whole traditions out.  I am the antithesis of a normal bride.  I don’t want to spend money on my dress.   Every process and tradition, if we can’t understand it, we don’t want to do it. The only thing we know is the two of us will be there.  The rest of the things we’re kind of writing like new authors. This journey has been interesting. At the end of the day, we’re thinking, “We really should have eloped.”  Because no one wants to be a part of this “eco-friendly, no-invitation, no bridal-party dresses” wedding. We don’t understand the point of buying an outfit that you only wear once.  You won’t be able to recognize it as a wedding by the time that we get done. Max and I were talking about how these traditions started. Some people are big on a veil.  Unless it’s a veil that you lift up and there’s supposed to be a revealing of the bride, if I’m not doing that, hanging stuff out of my hair, it’s weird to just have it there. It seems like one of the most pointless things I’ve ever heard of.  In all the years you daydream about a wedding, the best advice I got was someone said, “Throw a party you’d want to go to and call it a wedding.” I think that’s what Max and I have gotten right.  We’re throwing a party that we’d want to go to. It’s about as quirky and offbeat as I am and as cute and classic as he is, and you meet somewhere in the middle and swirl it together and you’ve got our wedding. We’re having fun but it is a big journey to get people on board as we do nothing that they did in their own wedding and they wonder why we have to be different.

How long have you been planning it?  When did you get engaged?

We got engaged December 3, 2013 but we had already started some of our planning before that. One way we bucked the constraints of what everyone else expected is taking them out of the environment they’re used to. The pressures of the amount of people that you have to invite, what it should look like, the awkward New York wedding—I didn’t want to deal with any of that.  We knew we were going away and we even had a working list of who we needed to invite before we got engaged, so we’ve been planning for awhile but once we got engaged, we made some cost decisions right away. We’re getting married in the Bahamas on Harbour Island and we jumped on that right away.  Our families said, “You’re going to make us all fly.” We said, “Already done.” Because we knew we’d overthink it if we let ourselves flounder too much.  One thing we’re both in line with is we want to have a party. We want to have lots of drinking and eating in a few days with our favorite people and the rest is really the part we’re screen-dooring. I don’t care what people wear at the wedding.  One by one, we’re hacking it out.   I feel that everyone in the wedding should be a special person.  The important thing for us is the meaning behind it.  It’s been one of the most critically broken-apart events for as little as I care about the details.  It’s amazing how much work we’ve put into it for what we call low maintenance.  We’re getting married on November 22.  We wanted to do it sooner but everyone got knocked up.  My sister had a baby. My best adult friend had a baby and so did my best childhood friend so three of the people who will be standing up with me got pregnant at the same time. So we had to wait for “Baby Nation” to work itself out.

You’re having the wedding on Harbour Island in the Bahamas. That’s beautiful from what I’ve heard.

We went there in March. We chose it because it’s the only time in your life that you can make your friends and family vacation with you, if you have your wedding somewhere at a destination.  We just want a few days out of everyone.  It will fly by fast, but we’ll get about three days’ worth, whereas most people get four or five hours’ worth.

What else about the event or anything we’ve talked about would you like to add?

Swish and Sue Sena—I would follow her into the Mists of Avalon.  Sue is an amazing person and Swish is a reflection of that. I know there are more people involved that I’m not mentioning, but Sue is such a figurehead for me.  This event was one of the coolest events I’ve ever done in New York.  Period. I’ve said that to people ever since doing it.  Why it was such a big deal and why it was such a treat is I remember walking away from there and thinking that only in New York can you find such a concentrated amount of talent. In order to put this show on, that talent can’t be in other shows. So the fact that you have enough talent at Songs in the Key of Equality to put on a Broadway-level production with so many people that are actually not working right at that moment is beyond me.  It was so cool because of the relaxed atmosphere.  The people I saw perform; I would pay anything to see them.  To see them all in one place with that vibe of “we all join together in the name of love and people close to us” was such a perfect combination.  I’m a big believer in this event.

Are you excited about the list of performers?

It’s amazing when you see the names roll out of who’s been booked. It shows you the level of this particular cause and how many lives it touches and how you can get such an elite group of people that will drop anything to be a part of it.  The cause alone had me involved last year.  I was excited to be a part of it.  Now it’s like that whole dedication to the cause combined with that amazing force of people I witnessed and met and stood next to last year that blew my mind.  Now, I’m even more invested in what this magical evening is all about.

To purchase tickets for Songs in the Key of Equality on May 19, 2014 (VIP cocktail reception at 7pm; show 8pm) at Le Poisson Rouge, visit https://donate.swishpride.org/page/contribute/swish-concert-tickets  and note that all proceeds benefit the Swish Ally Fund of the Stonewall Community Foundation.

Published May 12, 2014