For Gay Marriage, 'The NRA Is the Model'

[xchrom]

http://www.nationaljournal.com/gay-washington/for-gay-marriage-the-nra-is-the-model-20140123

Former Rep. Barney Frank's career roughly mirrors the arc of the modern gay-rights movement. He reminisced with National Journal. Edited excerpts follow.


Linda Hirshman's new history of the movement is called Victory: The Triumphant Gay Revolution. Do you agree with the premise?

No question. We've made a great deal of progress in abolishing prejudice. In some parts of the country there still is a problem with marriage and job discrimination, but in much of the country there's virtually no legal disability and not too much social and political disability. Forty years ago, there wasn't a single state where we were protected against job discrimination. We were banned from the country as immigrants. We couldn't get security clearances. There was discrimination in the federal government. There had never been an openly gay or lesbian appointee by a president. There were no openly gay members of Congress. You couldn't serve in the military.

How did things change in Washington?

When I got to Washington in 1981, there was a thriving gay community, but not deeply closeted. I analogize it to Switzer­land during World War II: the place where spies could go because they needed a place to relax where they wouldn't shoot each other. There were people—mostly men—who were out to each other, more Democrat than Republican, but there were a lot of Republicans. We knew who we were. There was an active gay social life of bars and dinners and meetings. Washington was a very good place to be gay for this reason.

Better than elsewhere?

Yes. At that time, if you were not part of a normal, heterosexual family unit, you were suspect; Washington was full of men, in particular, who were not part of family units, because those were back in home areas. So it wasn't unusual in Washington to be a man alone. And that gave cover to those of us who were gay.

So in that way this town hasn't changed much.

What changed is that the Democrats all came out. When Tom Foley was speaker, he recognized the gay and lesbian staff caucus. The membership meetings on the Hill were overwhelmingly Democratic, because the Republicans were still closeted. Even then, most Republicans didn't think being gay was a choice, so the Republican caucus said, "OK, you can't help it, just don't make a big deal about it."

[joeybee12]

1. Didn't know that about Tom Foley...what a shame we lost him...

And in return got the adultering Newt Gingrich.