Barney Frank has turned out to be just another political careerist, selling out Gay people just as he sold out Transgender people during the ENDA discussions in Congress.
His following in lockstep Obama's traitorous actions in regard to equal rights for Gay people now makes more sense:
Rep. Barney Frank is interested in capping his political career as a member of the president’s Cabinet, according to a new biography of the Financial Services Committee chairman.
Frank (D-Mass.) told author Stuart Weisberg that he would like to be Housing and Urban Development secretary. However, the 69-year-old lawmaker stresses that his departure from Congress is not imminent.
He first wants to pass more legislation on affordable housing, saying, “I want at least two years with President Obama and a solidly Democratic Senate so that we can get the federal government back in the housing business.”
[For the full article, see here.]
His "changing his mind" in regard to Obama's Justice Department invoking incest and pedophilia in its support of DOMA in federal court is "explained" in his press release at that time:
Congressman Barney Frank issued the following statement in response to a newspaper story regarding his position on the brief by the Department of Justice about Smelt v. United States.
“When I was called by a newspaper reporter for reaction to the administration’s brief defending the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act, I made the mistake of relying on other people’s oral descriptions to me of what had been in the brief, rather than reading it first. It is a lesson to me that I should not give in to press insistence that I comment before I have had a chance fully to inform myself on the subject at hand.”
“Now that I have read the brief, I believe that the administration made a conscientious and largely successful effort to avoid inappropriate rhetoric. There are some cases where I wish they had been more explicit in disavowing their view that certain arguments were correct, and to make it clear that they were talking not about their own views of these issues, but rather what was appropriate in a constitutional case with a rational basis standard – which is the one that now prevails in the federal courts, although I think it should be upgraded.”
[For the full press release see here.]
Anyone who thinks that a smart politician like Frank, at this late stage of his career, was anything but cynical when he said, "It is a lesson to me that I should not give in to press insistence that I comment before I have had a chance fully to inform myself on the subject at hand," is terribly naive!
For Frank to seemingly seek to cap his career by appealing to political expediency in selling out Transgender people during the ENDA discussions, and now by seeking to be in Obama's cabinet by selling out his Gay brothers and sisters so that he can cozy up to Obama like a lap dog, giving preeminence to "housing" as an issue rather than equal rights for LGBT people, is likely to stain his legacy as a man who could have been a hero in the equal rights movement, but ultimately showed himself to be a traitor to that movement!
4 comments:
The man epitomizes career politics, and he encapsulates for me what's wrong with Congress: Arrogance, pomposity and lack of connection with everyday people. What's more, he has some of the rudest people on his staff you'd ever want to encounter. Frank needed to have retired years ago, but his massive ego just wouldn't entertain that course of action. BTW, did you know he doesn't allow cameras to film him kissing his boyfriend, Herb Moses?
You hit the nail on the head, Don Charles. Also, as you point out" "BTW, did you know he doesn't allow cameras to film him kissing his boyfriend, Herb Moses?"
Why am I not surprised? What could pictures of him kissing his boyfriend do to enhance his political career? After all, it's all about politics and his career aspirations, even at this late stage of his career.
One of the tragedies of the legacy of Barney Frank is that he could have been a hero of the LGBT civil rights movement, and it turns out that he's just another ambitious politician who will throw LGBT people under the bus to enhance his ego and his career aspirations.
And that, in my opinion, will be his lasting legacy! And that's a tragedy! Best wishes, Jerry.
I'm not familiar with this site but as a gay Christian I'm a little perplexed by the response to Barney Frank. We are expecting him to be perfect, are we? Can you name fifteen other people in the current Congress who have a better record on gay rights issues, or even broader civil rights issues, than Frank? Ten? Seven? Even if so, what we need isn't 15, 10 or 7, we need a majority.
Health care is going to be a rude awakening to people who don't get that perfection is not within the capacity of the legislative branch. The currently proposed "bipartisan" compromise bill (which won't even get the votes of the Republicans who crafted it) is so grossly inadequate that I hope Democrats vote against it so they can start over with something closer to their original intentions. But more of the time, legislating change is more like jogging in a swimming pool. Hundreds of people, all at once. The further you're trying to get, the more ineffective your attempts are going to be if you're trying to run. You'd reach your goal faster if you just walk. And if everybody tried to swim, there would be tragedy. Would a second try at a health bill get closer to what will work? Maybe. Would a second try at ENDA have worked? I doubt it. And until then, there would be no bill at all, unless we do what most of these measures are meant to do: move in the right direction at a pace that doesn't invite insurrection, as a series of steps.
As far as kissing his boyfriend, how often do we see heterosexual congressmen kissing their wives? I think we need to realize that one person can't give us everything we'd like to see from them. Jesus was perfect; the rest of us need to follow him as closely as we can and not throw stones at the best among us. And, I'd remind you, Jesus' PR doesn't represent him as kissing a significant other either.
Don't fool yourselves that Frank's retirement would necessarily bring someone who is a better legislative champion of gay rights issues. For that matter, it might even be a Republican "populist", considering the insane backlash against Obama.
Let's stop throwing stones. Let's use them to build a stairway to where we want—and deserve—to be.
Thanks for your thoughtful comment, Anonymous. Just to take one part of it, you say, "The further you're trying to get, the more ineffective your attempts are going to be if you're trying to run. You'd reach your goal faster if you just walk." Frank needs to support the removal of DADT and DOMA; he approved of Obama's brief in federal court supporting DOMA, even when incest and pedophilia were invoked as "justifications" for that brief. He has not said that Obama must issue an executive order rescinding DADT, something he could easily say. You write, "You'd reach your goal faster if you just walk." I don't see Frank even "walking" when dealing with these crucial issues that cry out for redress. Best wishes, Jerry.
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