Today In History, 1987: Barney Frank Comes Out

Jim Burroway

May 29th, 2016

BarneyFrankBarney Frank became only the second member of Congress to confirm that he was gay, and the first to do so wholly voluntarily, when he told a Boston Globe reporter:

“If you ask the direct question: ‘Are you gay?’ the answer is yes. So what? I’ve said all along that if I was asked by a reporter and I didn’t respond it would look like I had something to hide and I don’t think I have anything to hide.”

Frank had been planning to come out for quite a while, but he kept putting it off while, ostensibly, looking for the right time. But in 1986, he felt particularly pressured to do so. In 1986, former extreme-right Congressman Robert Bauman (R-MD) published his memoir, The Gentleman from Maryland: The Conscience of a Gay Conservativewhich, in part, described his exile from Congress in 1980 after he had been charged with  soliciting a male prostitute (Oct 3. In it, he lashed out at those who he held responsible for his downfall: President Jimmy Carter, House Speaker Tip O’Neal, and Maryland politicians. He also took the highly aggressive step (for 1986) of outing Barney Frank, by writing about Frank attending a Gay Pride parade with someone Bauman assumed to be Frank’s boyfriend. (He wasn’t.) Frank later wrote: “No one reading it could miss the clear import: I was a gay man who enjoyed a media silence that he had been denied. I was scared. I was ready to come out, but not at his hands, not in that way, and not at that time. ”

Most of his straight colleagues tried to talk him out of coming out. Given the tenor of the times, their arguments made sense: merely being gay was, itself, scandalous, and potentially political suicide. Or if not outright suicide (Gerry Studds managed to be re-elected after he was censured by the House for being in a relationship with a former male page, (Jul 20)), it would, they warned, stopped any further progression in its tracks. Then came the disintegration of Gary Hart’s presidential campaign earlier that month over reports of his extra-marital relationship with a young model, and the revelation that Rep. Stewart B. McKinney of Connecticut had died of AIDS. Frank said there was “an unfortunate debate about ‘Was he or wasn’t he? Didn’t he or did he?’ I said to myself, I don’t want that to happen to me.” So he called the Globe — he had promised them the exclusive the year before when they first approached him about Bauman’s book — and came out on May 29. Two days later, the Globe did a follow-up and reported that most of his constituents were unperturbed by his announcement, and many were unsurprised.

Lonnie Lopez

May 29th, 2016

1. This doesn’t sound like a “voluntary” coming out at all. He was forced out. He lacked that courage until he was forced to speak.

2. I’ve always been confused as to why Mr. Frank is considered an LGBT icon. In his three decades in Congress, not one piece of pro-LGBT legislation was passed with his name on it. He had a role in the creation and passage of DADT. In fact, when Gavin Newsom was passing out marriage licenses in San Francisco in 2004, it was Barney Frank who criticized Newsom’s actions as “divisive.” Just because you’re gay doesn’t you’re on our side.

Joe Beckmann

May 29th, 2016

A few years after Barney’s disclosure, at a grocery store in Cambridge, a friend came up behind me and asked what I thought about his “coming out?” He was a new City Council member and, the next year, would soon be the Council’s elected Mayor. I turned around and smiled. “You were ever in?” was my response.

Jon

May 29th, 2016

@ Lonnie

I’m not sure if you have any idea whatsoever about the history of DADT. When Clinton campaigned on the idea of letting gays serve in the military, the top military brass and Senator Nunn (a dem) and a lot of other Republicans and Democrats coalesced against the idea. At the time they basically had witch hunts for gays. What Frank managed to get them to agree to was a cease-fire… gays were not allowed to openly serve but they were no longer hunted. Considering the losing hand the White House and Frank were dealing with it was actually a huge victory.

As for his coming out, basically everyone in the top ranks of the Dem party told Barney these allegations are made all the time and he could deny them. He had always told himself that he would not deny that he was gay if asked. So yes it was a courageous act. I’m sorry, but you just come off as someone completely ignorant of history in your comments. Please do a bit of research in the future before commenting.

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