Barney Frank
Barney Frank
Barnett "Barney" Frankis a former American politician and board member of the New York-based Signature Bank. He previously served as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Massachusetts from 1981 to 2013. As a member of the Democratic Party, he served as chairman of the House Financial Services Committeeand was a leading co-sponsor of the 2010 Dodd–Frank Act, a sweeping reform of the U.S. financial industry. Frank, a resident of Newton, Massachusetts, is considered the most prominent gay...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPolitician
Date of Birth31 March 1940
CityBayonne, NJ
CountryUnited States of America
I'm used to being in the minority. I'm a left-handed gay Jew. I've never felt, automatically, a member of any majority.
As a liberal, I am morally obligated to be pragmatic. What good do I do poor people, elderly people, people who are being discriminated against because of their sexual orientation if I'm not realistic about accomplishing something.
What would be the nicest thing I could say about Newt Gingrich? He may be one of the great supporters of the humanities, because you have people who don't want to study the social sciences, because it's not profitable, and now Newt, as the highest-paid historian in American history, may be an encouragement to people to study history.
I'm antisocial - there's no question about it.
The fact that theyre a congressionally chartered group should no more incline people to give to that group than the fact that its National Pickle Month should make them eat more pickles.
I was still closeted, but from the day I decided to run for office, knowing that I was gay, I decided that I would, of course, still be closeted but that I would work very hard for gay rights. It would be totally dishonorable, being gay, not to do that. So I had that as kind of a secondary agenda.
There is an irony that the most active anti-gay [groups] are Al-Qaeda and the American Right wing.
And unless you think there is a serious chance you're going to jail, don't listen to your lawyer.
In a free society a large degree of human activity is none of the government's business. We should make criminal what's going to hurt other people and other than that we should leave it to people to make their own choices.
In the debate between those who believe in essentially unregulated markets and others who hold that reasonable regulation diminishes market excesses without inhibiting their basic function, the subprime situation unfortunately provides ammunition for the latter view.
The issue is not that morals be applied to public policy, it's that conservatives bring public policy to spheres of our lives where it should not enter.
Nothing in the world is as mobile as capital. It can move anywhere in the world instantaneously.
Disruption never helps your cause. It just looks like you're afraid to have rational discussion.
If people knew of ethics violations, they should have sent them to the Ethics Committee. If you think there was serious ethics violation that ought to be looked at, you don't hold it back for retaliatory purposes.