When community action was put into federal law in the early sixties as part of the effort to combat poverty and social injustice, I supported it intellectually.
BARNEY FRANKThey have to convert our agenda into something aggressive. Two guys wanting to be happy together are invading their marriages. Helping a kid who’s getting beaten up in school is promoting homosexuality. If you gave me a million dollars, I wouldn’t know how to promote homosexuality.
More Barney Frank Quotes
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Regarding homophobia in general, the good news is that there is a lot less of it than there used to be. The bad news is that it ever existed in the first place, and the worse news is that it remains far stronger than is healthy for a society dedicated in theory to equality under the law.
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Lawyers are very, very good at keeping you out of prison, but they will sacrifice your reputation and credibility to do so.
BARNEY FRANK -
The left and the right live in parallel universes. The right listens to talk radio, the left’s on the Internet and they just reinforce one another. They have no sense of reality. I have now one ambition: to retire before it becomes essential to tweet.
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People are entitled to the presumption of innocence.
BARNEY FRANK -
Bush senior used to say that we have more will than wallet. So he urged the country to attack poverty with a thousand points of light, none of which could be eaten.
BARNEY FRANK -
But on those occasions when I do strongly disagree with the Democrats and I don’t say anything, I think I forfeit my right to have people pay attention to me when I say the things that I don’t like about what Republicans are saying.
BARNEY FRANK -
Let us not say that we will decide on a political basis at the national level that no State is competent to regulate the practice of medicine in that State if they decide to allow a doctor to prescribe marijuana, because that is what we are talking about.
BARNEY FRANK -
I think there was an absolute, deep gap between consensual relations between adults, which people may like or dislike, and people who physically impose themselves on children or misuse their authority to impose on children.
BARNEY FRANK -
Serving in Congress is like having a second shot at high school.
BARNEY FRANK -
Take free speech: most of the tough cases on free speech involve very unpleasant people saying very obnoxious things.
BARNEY FRANK -
Going before an audience of people who expect you to be funny is tough. Going before an audience that expect you to be boring, and then being a little funny, is much easier. I prefer easier.
BARNEY FRANK -
If Bob Barr (conservative republican congressman from Georgia) caught on fire and I was holding a bucket of water, it would be great act of discipline to pour it on him. I would do it, but I’d hate myself in the morning.
BARNEY FRANK -
Whenever people are being intellectually dishonest in debate, it is an implicit concession they have lost the fight
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I wouldn’t want [gay marriage] to go to the United States Supreme Court now because that homophobe Antonin Scalia has too many votes on this current court.
BARNEY FRANK -
These two entities—Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac—are not facing any kind of financial crisis.
BARNEY FRANK