Althouse: "Mr. Frank was also known for championing gay rights, civil rights and women’s rights. He did so by force of personality and by example."

May 20, 2026

"Mr. Frank was also known for championing gay rights, civil rights and women’s rights. He did so by force of personality and by example."

"He insisted that his male partner be invited to all events to which the spouses of other representatives were invited. In 2012, at age 72, he married Jim Ready and became the first sitting member of Congress to wed someone of the same sex. He also worked quietly behind the scenes to advance his causes. In one of many examples, according to his memoir, 'Frank: A Life in Politics From the Great Society to Same-Sex Marriage' (2015), he helped persuade President Bill Clinton not to appoint Senator Sam Nunn of Georgia as secretary of state because of his track record of homophobia...."

From "Barney Frank, Gay Pioneer and Liberal Stalwart in Congress, Dies at 86/Often voted the 'brainiest,' 'funniest' and 'most eloquent' member of the House, he was also the first to come out voluntarily and helped normalize being openly gay in public office" (NYT).

49 comments:

gspencer said...: Frank may have passed but his poisonous policies and thinking march on.; 5/20/26, 11:18 AM
Quaestor said...: "...brainiest, funniest, and most eloquent..."

Voted by whom, one asks, the men's room lurkers at 620 Eight Avenue?

Frank was just another corrupt Democrat who avoided censure because he was a prideful pederast, a fashionable affectation among DC denizens, I surmise.; 5/20/26, 11:19 AM
Aggie said...: 'Normalize'. There's that word again. I do not think it means what they think it means......; 5/20/26, 11:21 AM
tim maguire said...: Barney Frank's greatest claim to fame should be as one half of the Frank-Dodd banking reform that ensured the system that created the crisis would be preserved and the opportunities for graft would continue without consequences for those responsible.; 5/20/26, 11:30 AM
AMDG said...: Back in my be 70’s when he was a. Boston City Council member he was frequent guest host for liberal talk show hosts .
He was pretty great good at it.

That was before he began his career letting pimps use his domicile for gay prostitution.

He was not the first Congressman from Massachusetts to come out of the closet. The first was Gerry Studds, who came out after it was revealed he was molesting pages. He still got re-elected.

He did inspire a great joke: Why don’t Congressmen use bookmarks? Because they prefer to bend down over the pages.; 5/20/26, 11:31 AM
Quaestor said...: "...he was also the first to come out voluntarily and helped normalize being openly gay in public office."

There's a remedy for people like Barney Frank, and the Democratic Party is flirting with an ideology with seeks to apply that medicine universally. "Oft evil will shall evil mar," or something like that.

Imagine being eulogized for not mastering one's baser urges. I'd say more, but I've already quoted Cicero this week.; 5/20/26, 11:33 AM
narciso said...: The arsonist rewarded aa a fire fighter (dodd frank); 5/20/26, 11:37 AM
Iman said...: Let me be fwank… jk…; 5/20/26, 11:40 AM
Smilin' Jack said...: Unfortunate that this post directly follows the squelching thread.; 5/20/26, 11:44 AM
Peachy said...: Frank was not concerned about women's rights. that is a lie.

shish - just recently he stated that the trans movement just needed more time and delicate propaganda to move he Overton window to force the hivemind virus to force the approval of men taking over women's sports - thru "trans" acceptance or else diktats.
& again women's rights on the DEMOCRAT LEFT revolve around anti-fetus and fake females who are really men taking over whatever they want to.
He was really just another D- jerk.; 5/20/26, 11:50 AM
rhhardin said...: Chiefly known for causing the 2008 banking collapse via sub-prime mortgages for the poor.; 5/20/26, 11:55 AM
Achilles said...: A tool of the banking oligarchs passes on.

He did some other stuff nobody really cares about.

Pathetic that someone like this is venerated. There are many vets who died today that were ignored and they actually cared about the people of the USA instead of their banker paymasters.; 5/20/26, 11:56 AM
Lazarus said...: Boston in the 70s, like San Francisco, was a harbinger of what the Democratic Party and the Democrat states have become, and Frank was part of that bitter partisan environment.

He could be funny, but "brilliant"? "Eloquent"? No.; 5/20/26, 12:01 PM
Humperdink said...: “ Chiefly known for causing the 2008 banking collapse via sub-prime mortgages for the poor.”

Yep. Frank infamously said he was willing to “roll the dice” on mortgages given to people who had no chance of repaying it.; 5/20/26, 12:02 PM
IamDevo said...: As a thought experiment, ask yourself how we came to be in a time and palce where some of us honor pederasts and promoters of homosexual prostitution while at the same time, others are preparing to honor America's 250th Anniversary. Do those things have anything in common? Can a country that contains such disparite populations ever be unified? And do the two opposing elements even wish to be unified? And if you really want to get boggled, consider the number of people who espouse communism as America's preferred form of government, together with those who espouse islam and sharia as America's form of national religious affinity and legal code. Try to reconcile those competing factions and come up with a descriptive sentence also containing the word "united." (No fair inserting a negative in front of that word).; 5/20/26, 12:09 PM
paminwi said...: Not venerated in my book.; 5/20/26, 12:13 PM
Lazarus said...: I remember searching for Barney Frank's name through some magazine's article about who was responsible for the 2008 crash and not finding it, but he did have some blame for that. His excuse afterwards was that his party was out of power and it was all the fault of Bush and the Republicans. If he thought Bush was so much of an idiot that he wasn't paying attention, he could have raised the alarm, but he didn't because he and his party wanted the mortgage mess that caused the crash.

Barney's live-in in the 90s, Herb Moses, got a high-level job at Fannie Mae, which Barney was supposed to be regulating. Barely a whisper in the media about corruption (Barney was Barney after all, and plenty of legislators had their spouses on the public payroll). Herb went on to open a pottery studio.; 5/20/26, 12:18 PM
narciso said...: Do they ever tell the truth,; 5/20/26, 12:18 PM
narciso said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 5/20/26, 12:18 PM
john mosby said...: I am sure that in 1776 there was a lot of pederasty and other gay flavors. Also the age of straight consent and marriage was pretty darn low back then, and that attitude toward when people are sexually mature would carry over to the gay side.

Now of course people didn’t have chap-clad parades for it back then. But they had manservants, maidservants, bosom friends, and all sorts of other wink wink nudge nudge arrangements.

And then there were the navies. Basically mobile gay orgies shooting their massive loads at each other. Wooden ships and iron men, wink wink nudge nudge. CC, JSM; 5/20/26, 12:21 PM
Narr said...: A friend of mine had the misfortune of looking and sounding (with a Southern accent) like Ol' Barn.

He was not gay.; 5/20/26, 12:32 PM
Known Unknown said...: I wonder if his nipples will protrude from his gravesite.; 5/20/26, 12:33 PM
rehajm said...: Chiefly known for causing the 2008 banking collapse via sub-prime mortgages for the poor.

…and never got any credit for it in The Big Short.; 5/20/26, 12:38 PM
Narr said...: "I am sure that in 1776 there was a lot of pederasty [etc.]"

The royal and imperial capitals of Europe had gay scenes going back centuries by then. The American colonies may (or may not) have lagged behind(!) by then.

Louis XIV's brother "Monsieur" spent his life getting buttfucked by strapping Guards officers. It was an open secret, and Frederick the Great, when asked why he didn't want a lot of married officers, replied that officers could get sex in the barracks, per tradition.; 5/20/26, 12:40 PM
n.n said...: Legalized liberal fiscal policies. Backed sims in opposition to women and girls. A trans male who proudly celebrated political congruence of homos whose behavior has no redeeming value to either society or humanity. That said, civil unions for all consenting adults. #NoJudgment #NoLabels #HateLovesAbortion; 5/20/26, 12:43 PM
Narr said...: "Massive Load" would be a good name for a gay punk band.

Not as good as "Teh Glory Holes" (which is a lot easier to spell than their original idea--"Teh Prolapsed Sphincters") but still vividly suggestive.; 5/20/26, 12:44 PM
Larry said...: The Al Sharpton of queers. Pray he’s sucking cock in hell; 5/20/26, 12:50 PM
Wince said...: Often voted the 'brainiest,' 'funniest' and 'most eloquent' member of the House, he was also the first to come out voluntarily and helped normalize being openly gay in public office" (NYT).

As I recall, Frank was brainier, funnier and more eloquent when he served as a state rep in the Mass state legislature. Not sure if his less clever crankiness correlated with him coming out as gay.

In 1980, I attended a press conference in front of the Massachusetts state house attended by top liberal luminaries of Massachusetts politics at the time, including state rep Barney Frank, the summer before he was elected to congress. A major part of their reason for being there, obviously, was to get press for themselves.

The photographer from the Boston Globe asked me and another student at the time to stage an action photo of us with the State House behind us. I was sweaty wearing my usual stained white undershirt (not even a t-shirt) with my dungaree jacket tied around my waste by the arms, with wild longish curly hair.

Instead of the photo of the politicians, the Globe put the picture of us two atop the prominent page three photo location everyone saw as they opened the broadsheet. I still carry the photo on my phone.

Good times. Sorry Barney. RIP; 5/20/26, 1:02 PM
Wince said...: Correction: I just checked. I was wearing a darker color t-shirt at the time with my dungaree jacket tied around my waste by the arms, and wild longish curly hair. Which makes sense.

After all, it was an important press appearance!; 5/20/26, 1:06 PM
Charlie Currie said...: Subprime mortgages were not exclusively for the poor. Lots of middle and upper class borrowers used and abused them. They were for anyone who wanted that HGTV kitchen remodel. The cash out refinance was king in the mortgage industry. And, the vast majority of mortgages sold into the secondary market were not sold as subprime, but as alternative mortgages. They would have been considered un-saleable a few years prior. Everyone was betting on prime credit scores to protect them - and they didn't. The fall came when secondary buyers started using their computers to search previous loans for the borrower and finding that over the course of one to five years the borrower had purchased or refinanced property and that the borrowers income had doubled or tripled over that period. And, that's when they started declining purchases and requesting buy backs of mortgages they had already purchased. The rest is history - much distorted by those who benefited or wanted (MSM) to cast blame on the blameless.; 5/20/26, 1:22 PM
Bob Boyd said...: Barney Frank was funny.
I think a higher percentage of gay men are funny as compared to straight men. I wonder if anyone has ever done a study?
No study is needed to know that a much higher percentage of men in general are funnier than women in general. Men are so much funnier, it isn't even funny.; 5/20/26, 1:24 PM
Charlie Currie said...: I met Barney Frank at a three day mortgage industry conference in Palm Desert in the 90s. I had no idea who he was prior, and he was exactly as described in the article.; 5/20/26, 1:25 PM
boatbuilder said...: Chiefly known for causing the 2008 banking collapse via sub-prime mortgages for the poor.

…and never got any credit for it in The Big Short.

...Or in the NYT.

The Big Short left Barney out, but they did get Margot Robbie in. So half credit.; 5/20/26, 1:48 PM
Caroline said...: “ He also worked quietly behind the scenes to advance his causes. ” — and therein lies the whole problem with postmodern politics. There was a time when our civic leaders understood that they were to work “for the common good,” not at all the same thing as “working to advance my causes” . And to answer John Mosby — that is the only limited way by which we can hope to be united. A government that leaves us to the pursuit of happiness within our personal liberties, and within the law. Does Pride Month serve the common good? And all this business over redistricting by race— the idea that we need identitarian representation is anaethema to our founding. But this is why i have never seen a compelling black National candidate — excepting conservatives— because they don’t transmit any confidence that they are capable of acting for the common good.; 5/20/26, 2:04 PM
Lazarus said...: In one of many examples, according to his memoir, 'Frank: A Life in Politics From the Great Society to Same-Sex Marriage' (2015), he helped persuade President Bill Clinton not to appoint Senator Sam Nunn of Georgia as secretary of state because of his track record of homophobia....

Nunn was a man of his time who considered homosexuality a security risk and a threat to military unit cohesion. Whether he was right or wrong, those concerns can't simply be summed up as "homophobia." Having a secretary of state who didn't want the rainbow flag to be flown at embassies may not have been a bad thing.; 5/20/26, 2:24 PM
Ampersand said...: There should be a 10 day postmortem ban on saying bad stuff about the deceased. Then have at it.; 5/20/26, 2:35 PM
narciso said...: Michael bury was the real character carrell played a thinly disguised david eigeman who repeated the schpiel of wade rathke of acorn; 5/20/26, 2:50 PM
mccullough said...: Frank is known for Being Gay. Auden isn’t.; 5/20/26, 3:12 PM
Larry said...: Ampersand frank was a relentless bully, hate monger, and deadly hypocrite for decades. What led me to the bleakest possible despisal of the man was his exchange with you er students who were asking legitimate questions in a public forum designed for suck exchanges.

He basically kicked their teeth down their throats and in public with his trowel and bludgeon responses. It was likely the first time the youngsters had and exchange with a lawmaker and his hate and envenomed response guaranteed my enmity towards him beyond the grave; 5/20/26, 3:26 PM
Leland said...: I don't recall Brian Thompson's getting 10 days. I didn't even know of Brian's existence until he was gunned down in the street by someone that would probably vote for Frank or at least get votes by those that praised the someone. I just know Frank hurt a lot of people; many more than Brian Thompson was alleged to have hurt in similar ways, which is to say financial harm leading to early deaths.; 5/20/26, 3:34 PM
Humperdink said...: Charlie Kirk didn’t get a 10 day grace period, nor a 10 minute one. Hate filled glee was order of the moment.; 5/20/26, 3:49 PM
JAORE said...: I'll give a grace period for negatives if there wasn't such a nauseating trend of pronouncing sainthood in death for the most repellent of creatures.
(No, that wasn't aimed at Barney.); 5/20/26, 4:13 PM
RCOCEAN II said...: Oh he was so "Smart". So why didn't he know his gay "Friend" was running a prostitution ring out of Frank's basement?

And he was so "Funny". Was Sam Nunn laughing when Frank stabbed him in the back. Actually, that made me laugh. Nunn was one of those fake "Southern Moderates" who whenever the chips were down voted Liberal Democrat. IRC, he voted against Bork. So if one of his liberal buddies stabbed him in the back.....hilarious.

Anyway, when do Adulterers and S&M addicts get to normalize themselves in Congress?; 5/20/26, 4:49 PM
RCOCEAN II said...: The NYT's cant even be objective in their obits. Barney Frank, why he was just the funniest, greatest guy ever. Mark Furhman, well he said the N-word - 30 years ago, so lets have that be the lead. And he imply he was a nasty raciss.; 5/20/26, 4:51 PM
narciso said...: Its a garbage paper that would have lionized charles ponzi
As they did with andrew cuomo 'who stsrted the fire' along with henry cisneros

And yes fuhrman was done dirty; 5/20/26, 5:09 PM
narciso said...: There were some possum republicans that went along with 'ownership society' which caused the housing collapse; 5/20/26, 5:15 PM
n.n said...: Trans have always had equal rights. The novel progression was a liberal license to political congruence under rhe Pro-Choice religion to include couplets.; 5/20/26, 6:28 PM
n.n said...: Democrats forced the financial crisis, and others followed, unwittingly offering legitimacy and cover to liberal policies.; 5/20/26, 6:31 PM
Lazarus said...: Barney grew up in Jersey City, then one of the most corrupt cities in the country. His father was a truck stop operator who did time in prison. He practiced the kind of bare-knucked hardball politics one would expect.; 5/20/26, 7:54 PM