Bless you Barney Frank

I love Barney Frank. As chaiman of the powerful House Financial Services Committee, this past week he's been all over the news channels discussing the 700 billion dollar Wall Street bailout. Regardless of what you think about the proposed bailout plan (and feel free to share in the comments section) there is something quite reassuring for the GLBT community in having him be so visible of late.   

The man is enormously popular with his constituents. First elected in 1980, he’s been re-elected 12 times. (Republicans haven’t even bothered to field an opponent for his house seat since 2002).

Frank is also one of only two openly gay members of the U.S. House of Representatives (the other being Tammy Baldwin).  He came out publicly in 1987.

1990 was probably a low point in Frank’s political career.  His former housemate Steve Gobie went public with claims that he had been operating a male escort service out of Frank’s apartment.  Ironically, Republican Larry Craig led the charge to have Frank expelled or censured over this scandal. Ultimately, the House voted only to reprimand him.  Even with that incident hanging over him, Barney Frank won his 1990 re-election bid with 66% of the vote.

Throughout his political career Frank has been a staunch advocate for GLBT causes. He has also publicly threatened to out closeted politicians who use their seat of power to advocate anti-gay positions.

As Frank explained what has come to be called “The Frank Rule:”  “I think there’s a right to privacy. But that right to privacy should not be a right to hypocrisy. And people who want to demonize other people shouldn't then be able to go home and close the door and do it themselves.”

All too often closeted homosexuals are the most publicly homophobic – so you can’t help but wonder if Frank’s not so veiled threat to out closeted anti-gay politicians has helped to reduce the homophobic vitriol in American politics.

Bless you for that and a thousand other things, Barney.