Gingrich: 'Transvestite' invited me to 'exorcism of Jerry Falwell'

Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich recently told a story about a "transvestite" he met to explain why he doesn't agree with "San Francisco values."

Gingrich explained a 2006 fundraising pitch, in which had asked for donations so that conservative accomplishments were not "lost to the San Francisco values of would-be Speaker Nancy Pelosi."

Last month, the Georgia Republican accused Pelosi of living "in a San Francisco environment of strange fantasies and strange understandings of reality."

The San Francisco Chroniclecaught up with Gingrich at the Republican Party convention Saturday in Burlingame and asked him what he meant.

"I'll tell you a true story," the former House Speaker began. "I'm here in 1984 and I'm part of a truth squad. It's at the convention. ... And we're down at Union Square and CBS is interviewing me and this guy tosses me this perfect softball: 'The Republicans are going to Dallas, which has the largest Baptist church in the country. Democrats are going to San Francisco, which has the largest gay movement in the country. Does this say something about the two parties?'"

"Literally, at that moment a 6-foot-2 transvestite walks up and hands me an invitation to an exorcism of Jerry Falwell," Gingrich recalled. "I just cite that as some vague -- I really mean the Sierra Club, which has gone off the deep end as a general rule. Basically very, very left-wing values."

An Associated Press report dated July, 14, 1984 said that gay activist Sister Boom Boom and five members of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence did perform a mock exorcism of actors dressed as Rev. Jerry Falwell and anti-feminist Phyllis Schlafly in Union Square.

"They are here in the name or morality," Sister Boom Boom reportedly the said of the two conservative icons. "To equate morality with sexual behavior takes a filthy, prurient mind."

The Falwell character was then stripped of his business suit to reveal a corset and fishnet hose.

Watch this video from The San Francisco Chronicle, broadcast Feb. 25, 2012.

(H/T: The Huffington Post)