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 FRANKMost people who are activists and are concerned about issues get their information from sources which reinforce their opinions and give them the facts that they want to hear.
More Barney Frank Quotes
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We all have the right to call each other names. Rudeness is a deeply held constitutional value.
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For most of my life, I have eaten to deal with stress.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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I do not think that any self-respecting radical in history would have considered advocating people’s rights to get married, join the Army, and earn a living as a terribly inspiring revolutionary platform.
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The single most important thing you can do politically for gay rights is to come out. Not to write a letter to your congressman but to come out.
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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.
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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.
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I don’t think Donald Trump is the right person because I very much disagree with him.
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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.
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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.
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These two entities Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are not facing any kind of financial crisis. The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing.
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I have been mislabeled as a big advocate of low-income home ownership over rental.
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I think there were two criticisms you can make of Donald Trump’s involvement in the Health Care Bill. First of all, there were times when he wasn’t being helpful. Secondly, there were times when he was trying to be helpful. I’m not sure which one did more damage.
BARNEY FRANK