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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

It is because the fight against the harshest aspects of unrestricted capitalism is therefore a political problem and not an intellectual one that community action remains so essential.
BARNEY FRANK

Aquarium Community Fighting
We don’t get ourselves dry cleaned.
BARNEY FRANK

Clean Dry Ourselves
I am not aware of any specific provision that mandates any tightening of lending to small business other than a requirement that people who lend and then sell that loan be prepared to take a part of the risk. And I’m proud of that.
BARNEY FRANK

People Proud Risk
Serving in Congress is like having a second shot at high school.
BARNEY FRANK

Congress Political School
These two entities—Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac—are not facing any kind of financial crisis.
BARNEY FRANK

Financial Kind Two
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.
BARNEY FRANK

Diversity Equality Under Justice Law
For many of those who had historically supported welfare programs in the broadest sense, it was perfectly reasonable to enact legislation in which poor people were the objects of efforts to assist them.
BARNEY FRANK

Effort People Programs Welfare
I had always been interested in politics. I had assumed – for two reasons, being Jewish and being gay back in the late ’50s, early ’60s – that I would never be elected or anything, but I would participate as an activist.
BARNEY FRANK

Gay Reason Two
I will tell you, I’m a lousy cook, but I think I’m a pretty good judge of a good meal.
BARNEY FRANK

Judging Meal Thinking
Moderate Republicans are reverse Houdinis. They tie themselves up in knots and then tell you they can’t do anything because they’re tied up in knots.
BARNEY FRANK

Knots Republican Ties
The rights of the people who have done terrible things are hard to defend. You have to keep pointing out, the question is the process to determine whether they’ve done the terrible things.
BARNEY FRANK

Done People Rights
This bill is the legislative equivalent of crack. It yields a short-term high but does long-term damage to the system and it’s expensive to boot.
BARNEY FRANK

Doe Long Yield
I have this fear that one day there’s going to be a fire in the Senate and there are only going to be 57 senators there and they’ll all die because they won’t have 60 votes to allow themselves to leave the building.
BARNEY FRANK

Fire One Day Vote
Lawyers are very, very good at keeping you out of prison, but they will sacrifice your reputation and credibility to do so.
BARNEY FRANK

Lawyer Reputation Sacrifice
For the trustees to turn away from the entirely reasonable request of the students that a hearing-impaired individual be made president of the college is a very unfortunate expression of insensitivity.
BARNEY FRANK

College Expression President
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

Littles People Tough
There were a lot of Romneys. There’s the Romney who was going to be better on gay rights than Ted Kennedy; now there’s a Romney who checks with Rick Santorum on that issue.
BARNEY FRANK

Better Country Gay Rights
Before this learning experience, I had assumed that with regard to programs that sought to help people out of poverty, the political world was essentially divided into two camps: conservatives who opposed these for a variety of reasons, and liberals who supported them.
BARNEY FRANK

People Political Two
Excessive partisanship is the problem. There has never been a democracy in the history of the world in a polity of any size where you didn’t have political parties. Even sometimes over the objections of the people who started it.
BARNEY FRANK

Party People Political
But here too it should be noted that the President’s approach was to first ask the repressive and brutal Taliban to surrender Osama bin Laden to us, and only after that government refused to do that did we invade.
BARNEY FRANK

Firsts Government President
They 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.
BARNEY FRANK

Kids School Two
The best antidote to prejudice is reality.
BARNEY FRANK

Antidote Prejudice Reality
There is a correlation between people who attack same-sex marriage and have difficulty maintaining their own.
BARNEY FRANK

Maintaining People Sex
Ronald Reagan got a lot of democrats. I wish he hadn`t. I got to Congress with Reagan coming to the Whitehouse. The Reagan Program, a very radical one, a very drastic one passed because he had a lot of democrats. He worked at it personally and also because Reagan retained a popularity.
BARNEY FRANK

Popularity Program Wish
When I was here there was still a requirement that students had to swim 50 yards to graduate…because Harry Elkins Widener had drowned with the sinking of the Titanic. And it made me very grateful at the time that he had not gone down in a plane crash.
BARNEY FRANK

Funny Graduation Grateful Swim
I am very proud of the role I played in getting legal equality for people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender, and in helping get rid of the prejudice by being visible about it, helping to block the conviction of Bill Clinton of impeachment.
BARNEY FRANK

Bisexual Block Gay
Increasing inequality in income distribution in this country has broader policy implications, and there is also the growing problem of perverse incentives that result from executives receiving grossly disproportionate compensation based on decisions they themselves take.
BARNEY FRANK

Country Decision Receiving

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.

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Popular Authors

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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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