Ex-Rep. Barney Frank, gay trailblazer, prais Hoe passage of same-sex marriage bill

MY LIFE AS A GAY CONGRSMAN

Barney Frank, Amerin Democratic polician who served the U.S. Hoe of Reprentativ (1981–2013) and was one of the first openly gay members of Congrs. He thored (wh Chris Dodd) the Dodd-Frank Act, a broad package of regulatns and reforms of the fancial servic and nsumer fance dtri. * is barney frank gay *

Though I was a third term Democratic ngrsman om Massachetts, I had lived too long wh the burn of “the gay thg” to treat g out as a polil matter alone. I’d felt shame as I watched younger gay men and lbians nont the bigots openly wh a urage that I lacked. They remaed mted to the “le” that proment people should not be outed unls they had been enmhed a gay-related sndal, but they were unrstandably eager to break the story.

RERD 13 CONGRS MEMBERS INTIFY AS GAY, LBIAN OR BISEXUAL

The 118th U.S. Congrs set a historil mark wh a rerd 13 members who intify as gay, lbian or bisexual. * is barney frank gay *

I nsistently said no—I didn’t ny I was gay but voked their own nondisclosure prciple. His primary ncern was outlawg abortn, but he had followed the nservative movement’s anti-gay le as well. His nial of his homosexualy was universally—and accurately—disbelieved, and he was feated for reelectn that year.

In his memoir scribg his own gay life, he ced my attendance at a gay pri rally the pany of a iend whom he accurately assumed was a romantic attachment. No one readg uld miss the clear import: I was a gay man who enjoyed a media silence that he had been nied.

“Tip, ” I said, “Bob Bman has jt wrten a book that says I’m gay. When I had asked gay rights activist Steve Enan to take me to a gay bar 1980, durg Congrs’s lame-duck ssn, he was chastised by a senr gay polil lear for threateng my ver, thereby endangerg an important LGBT polil asset. I then explaed that I did not tend to announce anythg, but that I would answer hontly if a reporter asked if I was gay.