Candace Gingrich-Jones, the lesbian half-sister of Newt Gingrich, tells the Huffington Post that her half-brother has changed and that influence from his wife Callista has made LGBT issues "no longer … a red meat issue for him politically."

Candace says that Newt regularly hangs out with a bunch of different gay people, the HuffPost's Andrea Stone reports:

Speaking for two-and-a-half hours at the headquarters of the Human Rights Campaign — the gay advocacy group where she went to work soon after Gingrich led the Republican Revolution in the House — Gingrich-Jones described a less strident older brother.

She said Gingrich has gone to Green Bay Packers football games with a lesbian couple who are longtime friends of Callista, who hails from Wisconsin. The couple's social circle includes Steve Gunderson, an openly gay former Republican congressman for whom Callista once worked. And Gingrich recently attended a matinee of a play based on the true story of a child custody dispute between two former lesbian lovers, one of whom became an evangelical Christian and declared she was straight. That play, "She Said/She Said," was a thesis project written by Rebecca Gingrich-Jones, who married Candace Gingrich in Boston in August 2009. At a lunch after the play, Gingrich "was very complimentary," though he ultimately turned down an invitation to Rebecca's graduation, which took place two months later.

However, earlier this year, it was reported that Newt Gingrich arranged $200,000 in seed money for anti-gay groups working to oust three pro-equality Supreme Court justices. That amount later rose to $350,000.

Newt also sat down with hate group leader Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association to describe how he would "slow down the homosexual agenda" if he were elected to office.

Candace also says her half-brother won't quit over his staff exodus.