Razing Morale on Capitol Hill

Approach US Congressman Barney Frank’s office on Capitol Hill is a bit like inching toward the shark tank at Sea World. Visitors beware that sandwiched in the middle unit at 2252 Rayburn Office Building lies what the New York Times has called “a salty old curmudgeon,” and who after representing the 4th District in Massachusetts for 32 years now finishes us that last of his historic laps through public life.

Rounding the corner to office on a sweltering mid-Atlantic summer morning, I’ll admit to pretending not to see the e-mail informing me our was postponed. “The majority scheduled a series of votes unexpectedly,” the e-mail read, encouraging me to kill time in the cafes along Independence Avenue.

As a former U.S. Press Secretary, I’ll sensed from the Members entering his office, and the constituents who’d not been turned away, that our public servant was probably somewhere on the side of the reception room. “I’m here to see Barney Frank,’ I said, easing my briefcase onto the reception desk.

An intrepid woman orbits the tiny reception area; intercepts my arrival; and in an act of administrative gyration prepares to eject me from the office. “The Congressman has been called to floor, and your appointment has been rescheduled until later this afternoon.”

Incensed to at long last be on the receiving end of a buttstroke I’d deployed so many times myself on the Hill I retort, “This meeting has now been re-scheduled twice. Is this third and final appointment firm?”

Equal to the task the chief of staff replies, “yes, its firm. The Congressman does need to vote, and I’ll be sure to tell him how rude you were.”

Rude, in fact, had been the very word used to describe the Honorable Barney Frank during his tenure on the Hill by the Times, Washington Post and Wall Street Journal on more occasions than I or my staff could count. As I retreated back into the hallway, Members were indeed gushing through the corridors onto their private elevators and into the bowels of the U.S. Capitol where an underground rail system and secret passageways channels them toward the rotunda. Like a regatta of magnificent ships, each with a unique port of call, they make their way through Congress with our concerns and hope in their prayer. Long hours and modest compensation don’t discourage this group, these men and women, the Members of the United States House of Representatives. And as I stepped from the Rayburn House Office Building, admittedly bruised by the encounter, my phone rang with a voicemail asking me to return.

Back through security, up the elevator a second time, down increasingly familiar corridors and thus I return to be greeted by a curiously polite Barney Frank. “Sorry for the kerfuffle,” he says, just a skipper on the ship. “Do watch your step.”

Thresholds of marble are made to last, and his quarters offer clues to his legacy and past. Framed pictures, award and recognitions all puzzle together as somehow more than wall of fame. Indeed, they are the manifest of his tenure on Capitol Hill. Navigating across the room, I notice a framed cover of a 1950’s senate report on hiring gays entitled “The Employment of Homosexuals and Other Sex Perverts in Government.” Derailing my research I began:

You came to Washington in January 1981 with a liberal agenda and mind to “do something about gay rights.” Yet you didn’t come out for 6 years until at the height off the AIDS epidemic, when homosexuality was on trail throughout the free world, you put the face of a US Congressman on one of the most controversial events of the 20th century. Was it a political strategy, or a personal decision that coincided with your circumstance?

It was a personal decision that I hoped would have positive political implications.

I knew I was gay at 13; wanted a political career; and initially thought I could repress my sexuality. When I got to Washington I thought: okay, I’ll improvise. I’ll live as a gay man among other gay men whilst remaining closeted in Congress. But as I became more visible, my ambiguity began to create conflicts with my politics. I knew a public disclosure would have negative implications. I hoped it might help to fight the prejudice.

Frank paused. As though looking at himself in a kaleidoscope of his own career; somehow deviating from stock answers to standard questions he’d rehearsed many times as the first openly gay United States Congressman.

The AIDS thing. You’re right. It was a big deal. Here’s the thing: When I got to Washington, I tried to represent the gay community. What I discovered was that nobody on Capitol Hill actually knew who they were. Gays, as then, retreated to enclaves, and where they appeared in public were always swathed in alibi and alter egos that left them shrouded in mystery even to their own friends and families. I realized then, we can’t write policy around propaganda. Real people would have to come forward.

The first gay rights vote I was involved in was to repeal the anti-sodomy laws in the District of Columbia. The House, as then, had the authority to cancel that. I lobbied with liberal and pled, “Why are you supporting this?” They replied:

And then they did. AIDS’ sweeping death tolls began forcing Congress to examine the epidemic from a legislative point of view. In fact, the first votes the U.S. Congress ever won was to defeat an amendment that denied people with AIDS medical treatment. The AIDS epidemic called the gay community to Capitol Hill.

Okay, but when you came to Washington you initially felt it would be a brief stint. Why bother?

I wasn’t sure I’d survive. In 1982, I was expecting to lose my first election because of redistricting. Reagan had a program that was unpopular in Massachusetts. My republican opponent was something of a moderate to liberal who was forced by Reagan to become more conservative. That gave me a chance to pick up a lot of her support.

And they’re remapping it again?

Every 10 years, due to population shifts, districts are reorganized based on a 1964 US Census Supreme Court ruling that each district must have equal representation.

You were an advisor of Gill v. Office of Personal Management which led to the First US Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston unanimously affirming DOMA’s unconstitutionality. With interracial marriage, abortion, and now same-sex marriage ultimately being decided in the courts, are politicians more a steering committee for civil rights?

First, let me say that the Director of the Civil Rights Project at GLAD, Mary Bonauto, is our Thurgood Marshall. The mistake the LGBT people made, and its flipped now, was to assume that if you declare same-sex marriage legal in Hawaii, as happened in 1996, then it would be legal everywhere. That was neither legally true nor politically sustainable.

However, we’ve since come up with a very good strategy. The suggestion that homosexuality causes trouble in any aspect of society is ludicrous. Demonstrate that, state by state, and expand it. Gill v. Office of Personal Management ensured that people married in Massachusetts are also recognized as legally and lawfully married by the federal government, too. With bi-partisan politics invariably slogging the process, Mary Bonauto is the best bet that this will be heard in due course by the Supreme Court.

Are politicians overshadowed by a judiciary that ultimately legislates from the bench?

No. Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. Hate Crimes. The Employment Non-Discrimination Act. The Supreme Court of the United States is the expositor of the US constitution. The court has the duty to review the constitutionality of acts of congress and declare them void if and when they run contrary to the spirit of the constitution. With deference to the equal protection clause, not one of these conversations will ever see the inside of a courtroom. Fairness, however, is not peculiar to the LGBTQ community. It’s a question that affects everyone in America.

You called the impeachment of Bill Clinton one of the “Great acts of hypocrisy in American history.” Why?

Because the Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich, was actively having an affair whilst cheerleading congress to impeach Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinsky.

Simple as that?

Yep.

Do you think what consenting adults are doing in the privacy of their bedroom is an appropriate conversation for politicians on Capitol Hill?

No. Unless they’re publicly condemning what they privately condone. Hypocrisy should be a conversation.

How is social media changing the political process?

First, social media enables us to filter out anyone or thing we don’t agree with. It’s to have the most active people politically living in parallel echo chambers. Second, it magnifies cynicism because there are no filters mitigating the information.

So it’s not censored?

Not only is it not censored, but, far more importantly, it’s not filtered. Is it censorship when an editor asks a reporter to cite their source? Anyone can put anything on the Internet without having to demonstrate its accuracy.

Facebook currently has nearly 3 billion users and say they’re targeting all 8 billion people on the planet. How important is social media to the political process?

People used to get their news from one source called legacy media. Today, it’s social media, podcasts, cable news outlets, and their 24-hour news cycles that enable people to get news only from those they agree with rather than an objective source. The ideological bifurcation of news, regardless of its platform, and regardless of its position, impacts and confuses people’s political opinions. Complex narratives can't be conveyed by a single point of view, but rather diversified into an arc of information to achieve objective truth.

You plan to teach in retirement?

Yes. Teach and write about the history of the Gay Rights Movement. The LGBTQ movement, beginning with Stonewall in ’69, is coterminous with my first election to the Massachusetts legislature in ’72. I’ve been the beneficiary of the progress, and, to some extent, an agent of it.

When did you become interested in Adam Clayton Powell?

I’ve been interested in Adam Clayton Powell contemporaneously with my life in politics. He was a major figure in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations. While segregationists in his party controlled seats allocated in the southern states, Powell, together with the NAACP, developed a strategy known as the “Powell Amendments” which required federal funds to be denied to any jurisdiction that maintained segregation. The principle became integrated into the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Moreover, Powell was the third black member of Congress. He challenged the informal ban on Black representatives using Capitol facilities reserved for White members. He took black constituents to dine with him in the 'Whites Only' House restaurant, and he was the first African American United States Congressman to swim in the 'Whites Only' swimming pool. Although he was the third black Member of the U.S. House of Representatives, he was the first to actively reject his segregated status.

In July, you’ll become the first Member of the United States Congress to be married to a person of the same sex, and you’ve said it’s important for Members of Congress to interact with a gay married man. Will this have a polarizing effect on your colleagues and constituents?

No. It’ll have a de-polarizing effect. People react much more negatively to abstract stereotypes. Reality defeats prejudice.

Indeed… For on the 4th of July 2012, just 4 weeks after my interview with Frank, the Department of Justice (whose sole commission is to defend federal law) filed two petitions for writs of certiorari from the United States Supreme Court. In brief, the federal government withdrew from its duty to defend the Defense of Marriage Act, and as lawsuits inched through the legal system and onto the highest court of the land, the DOJ, in fact, President Barack Obama, asked for resolution on Article 3 of DOMA.

Denying legally married same-sex couples of the some 1,138 privileges, rights and protections afforded to legally married opposite-sex couples, President Obama asked the Supreme Court to consider what the Gentleman from Massachusetts has been stumping about for 32 years—the question of fairness. Vice President Joe Biden went on to officiate the first same-sex wedding between two White House staffers in 2016. A first among the victories for the early proponents of same-sex marriage.

Revolutionaries are known for their rebellion, aggression, and, yes, rudeness. And every fight has a front man. But let the first to waltz with his husband at the White House be remembered a statesman: whose savvy of the political process and hard work combined to pass the torch of revolution to a kinder, gentler nation.