Sara Haines on why she’s hosting Songs in the Key of Equality

STRAIGHT ALLY: NBC ‘Today Show’ host Sara Haines supports LGBT equality because her brother is gay. Photo: NBC Universal

By Scott Harrah

Sara Haines, contributing correspondent for NBC’s “Today Show,” earned the nickname “Sara Sage” from her iconic on-air colleague Kathie Lee Gifford.  After speaking to her for more than half an hour, it is easy to understand why Ms. Haines was given the moniker.  Ms. Haines is witty and bubbly, but she is also insightful, intelligent, and comes across as a down-to-earth intellectual. Ms. Haines, a graduate of Smith College, is a strong advocate for LGBT causes because her brother is gay.

Ms. Haines hails from Iowa and grew up in a loving but conservative family, and left her home state for the East Coast, but remembers how different things are between the coasts, and how hard it is for families everywhere to first cope with finding out a brother, sister, son or daughter is gay.

Ms. Haines is the host of the upcoming “Songs in the Key of Equality” benefit concert for the straight LGBT alliance Swish on May 20, 2012 at 7:00 pm at Le Poisson Rouge.  I recently spoke to this incredible woman about why she wanted to emcee this important event. This is the fifth installment in StageZine’s 10-part series on the cast and team behind “Songs in the Key of Equality.”

What inspires/moves you to lend your time to Swish and the LGBT rights movement in this way?

My brother’s gay.  I went to a women’s school, and I was a female athlete, so many of my friends were gay once I got to college.  And since then, as my brother said, I’m with the gays more than he is.  I think it’s crazy that we’re in 2013 and these things are still an issue.  How are we still having a dialogue over who it’s okay to marry?  It’s a huge issue and very close to my heart.  My brother is with someone that we think he’ll end up marrying and we love.  I think love’s hard enough to find, so you can’t really put parameters on it.  Finding it is the gift and the journey.

You work in the media, and we strive to be ethical, balanced and fair. What can the media do to make life easier for the LGBT community?

Keep telling the stories.  I don’t know if I’m somewhat jaded because I am coming up in at time where people on the air are coming out…it isn’t such an issue.  LGBT stories are lauded.  It’s not like, “Oh, that was so bold of you guys to do that.”  It’s like, “Of course it is, and it’s an amazing story.”  I don’t know if I’m not seeing it clearly or if I’m too “in it” to separate myself.  The people I sit next to are the same ones on the camera but also writing and behind the scenes and it doesn’t faze us.  I don’t know if it’s because we’re in New York City or if it’s the age we’re in.  I don’t feel any disparaging follow-up.  I think the media, or at least where I am, we do lend our voice to that [LGBT causes].  We’re like kids who grew up in it.

I know NBC is very supportive of LGBT causes.

Oh, yeah! The LGBT event for NBC every year is one of the biggest.  We always squabble over who gets to go because Javier Morgado, who’s now at CNN, is a dear friend of mine and he has been a huge voice in the gay community.  He would wrangle us all up and we’d laugh because it was a cause that we all clearly support but it was also an excuse for us all to hang out together.

Tell me what equality means to you, Sara.

I would say equality is when there aren’t special rules for different people. There’s a general sense of sameness.

How can theater and the performing arts promote tolerance, love and acceptance of the LGBT community?

I think the theater world is doing the best.  It’s kind of the pioneer of what to do. Artists in general have always embraced change.  In many ways, they have led change so I think continuing to do what they do.  I’m from Iowa, and aside from the fact that I saw so many of these things before my brother came out to me; this was not a cause I actually needed a personal connection to, although that makes it run deeper.  I think the idea that the community lives it, supports it and continues to put out such amazing work.  There is such a strong support of the gay community in the theater and the arts in general.

We all live in bubbles.  For me, being in New York City is its own bubble.  Being in the arts is its own bubble.  The theater community is amazing.  Whenever you take the talent from within the community, people are so eager to support it.

Let’s go to a more personal question because we’re both former Midwesterners and I think we both know firsthand what things are like for gays in that region of America. Where are you from in Iowa? I’m from Nebraska.

I’m from Newton, Iowa. It’s about 30 miles from Des Moines.  My parents have since left Iowa.  When I was back home, the attitude was there aren’t gay people in Iowa.  That’s the time I grew up in.  Looking back, I think times have changed.  I think in my time, everyone came out once you went to college.  Watching the people in my life over the years, they’ve all evolved.  I’d say it’s not where you start but where you finish that matters.  Even if they didn’t quite get it or it wasn’t what they understood, they got there.  A part of me feels this particular issue is so overdue. Let’s get past this; we’ve got bigger things.

There will always be ignorant people everywhere. I haven’t spent a lot of time back in the Midwest lately.  I just went back last summer and had not been in four years.  I think it’s even changed out there. Of course, it’s not New York.  I hope in the middle part of the country that things are better than they used to be.

I think it can’t do anything but get better. I do believe in people. I think every time I go back [to the Midwest], I’m more impressed. It has changed. It’s gotten better. I think part of this goes back to your media question. Did you ask specifically about news or media?

I meant just media in general, Sara.

I think there was a huge boom, and my brother and I can argue about this forever.  When TV shows started to have gay friends, it really started to hit home.  People fall in love with character on shows.  When you make it personal, although that’s probably the farthest thing from personal, our experience with TV and media is very personal.  It’s in our home.  It’s in our hands.  About the time we had “Will and Grace,” “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy,” you had all these TV shows coming out (pun intended, ha, ha). That was the beginning where media made probably its biggest impact. My brother’s argument [about these TV shows] is, “You’re perpetuating stereotypes.” I said, “You’ve got to start with that.  Before they had the fight for civil rights, they had white people in blackface and people painted black, making jokes about blacks.”  I said, “You’ve got to start with something that’s digestible for everyone, because it is new.”  Now, jump to the fact that it’s no longer the one character that’s thrown in.  [Now], it’s actually just stories about people.  And with people, there’s a lot of diversity.  I think the one thing the media can do to continue to help is to continue writing real-life stories, which will involve all sorts of characters. In news, there’s so much frigging news that [people] aren’t missing anything. Since we are on 24/7 [in the news world], we’re getting extra stuff we don’t even need.  I think [the word about LGBT people] is getting out there with these events [like Swish’s “Songs in the Key of Equality”].  It’s moving people and pulling on their heartstrings because when you make an issue personal, you’ve got their attention.

One of the reasons StageZine.com wanted to get involved with Swish is because it’s straight allies for LGBT people. There were not any straight nonprofits rallying for gays when I was younger.  We need straight people getting other straights to speak up for the LGBT community because there must be more of this.  There have always been gay organizations but there needs to be straight people telling others, “You know what? This is cool. This is okay. There’s nothing wrong with LGBT people.” I think it’s a wonderful mission that Swish has.

Swish co-founder Sue Sena says it best. She says, “Straight people have to come out. They have to come out and support LGBT people.” I thought that was the most beautiful way.  We’re all going to face adversity at some point in our lives. I’d better be surrounded by people that would pick me up if I was running into something, a hurdle or an injustice, and I wouldn’t be anything less, and so that’s what this movement is.

Let’s go back to talking about your brother.  Did he officially come out to you or did you always know?

No, I definitely didn’t know. People always ask that, and none of the family knew. My mom used to say, “I guess I kind of knew.” She was in denial for the first four years. He’d be at a party and someone would hang all over him and my mom would say, “Do you think he’s changing his mind?” I’d go, “Probably not. That’s a safe bet.” None of us knew. My brother came out to me first. I was at Smith in western Massachusetts [Northampton], and he was at Boston University. He called me about a book that was in our library. [He was working] on an assigned paper topic about coming out for a class. I was telling my volleyball team and saying that he was so forward thinking? I mean, we grew up in Iowa.  They were like, “Oh, he’s gay.” I was like, “No, no, no, he’s writing a paper that’s been assigned.” They said, “We all start by writing papers.”

So did you have any idea or ever think he was gay when you were growing up?

No. I think he’s grown and matured into himself. Now he’s 34 and Joe’s very much himself.  I used to call him the straightest gay guy you’ll ever meet.  He’s been in a relationship for years now.  When he came out, the confusing part for me was [the way we were raised].  We were all good kids.  We didn’t drink.   We did well in school.  We knew we weren’t supposed to do certain things. So when I watched all of us [siblings] pass that test and then Joe did, what I didn’t realize is that the biology of a dude is different so the odds of having a guy be abstinent are really slim. I just thought, “Oh. my God, my brother is such a good boy.”  I didn’t wonder why he wasn’t jumping everything in sight.  He’d go to prom. He’s a really good-looking guy.  He had cute girlfriends.  Not long love relationships; just girlfriends.  He kind of denied big parts of himself.  He was a beautiful all-state vocalist.  He used to sing from our balcony at our house, like [songs from] Les Miz. That should have been a big sign.

That should have been a big sign right there, Sara. [We both laugh.]

As I describe him I’m like, wow, maybe there were signs actually. But my parents would take us to plays in Chicago. We’d go to Phantom of the Opera and he’d sing in the car.  He also loved the symphony, so in my mind I thought he was just this appreciator of music. We really did not see this coming.  But then it was funny because my whole family went through the growing pains of any family. I remember when my sister had kids; my oldest sister, and she’s the most conservative of all of us.  She said, “Well, I don’t know if I should tell the kids.” She said, “Should I tell them their uncle is gay?” I said, “They know I have a boyfriend. Let them know Joe has a boyfriend, too.”

So we kind of learned together.  Questions were asked, but we were all so willing to say, “What do I do here?”  I was kind of the lesbian wannabe.  My parents thought I might be gay. They were wrong.  I got my hair cut off, had no boyfriend, and studied. I think they thought they had a gay child, but they had pegged the wrong one.  I’ve always been my brother’s biggest advocate, ally, friend, and protector. So before I even realized on a conscious level that my brother was gay, I always took on the cause.  My parents, if they had friends with kids who were gay, they weren’t addressed at all.  It just was a nonissue, and swept under the rug. Then I got to college and discovered some gay people had been subjected to violence. People had been beaten up for who they were, and then I got angry. I started to mature and I let the anger come out more productively through words and actions. So it’s been a growing pain but it’s always been a part of my heart.  It’s an issue of love and if you feel love, it should be close to your heart.

I’m glad we’ve talked about your brother because I think it’s so important to talk about families. I think it’s the hardest telling your family you’re gay, but once the family is okay with it, everything else is easier. You can then just tell the whole world.

You’ve been wonderful to interview, Sara. Anything else you want to add about the Swish concert or something we haven’t covered?

I’m just honored to be a part of this Swish event. I heard about Swish the first time I met [co-founder] Sue Sena. When I heard about the history of how it started, I was so excited when they asked me to be even the littlest part of the event.  The show they put on; I’m honored to be on the stage. Clearly they are not going to let me sing or play the piano or dance, but I’ll take just being the emcee.

SARA SAGE: Sara Haines on NBC’s ‘Today Show.’ Kathie Lee Gifford nicknamed her ‘Sara Sage’. Photo: NBC Universal

Published May 14, 2013