Quotes from Barney Frank

I filed the first gay rights bill in Massachusetts history in 1972 in the legislature, one of the first in the country.

I am not a great theologian. I know there is a theological concept called invincible ignorance in which a strong enough faith binds you to any facts to the contrary.

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.

Television is apparently the enemy of nuance. But nuance is essential for a thoughtful discussion.

I have done a lot of work for affordable housing, rental housing. I understand the rap on me and other liberals is, oh, we push poor people into homeownership. And it's exactly the opposite of the case. We were trying to prevent those kinds of bad loans.

As a liberal, I am morally obligated to be pragmatic. What good do I do poor people, elderly people, people who are being discriminated against because of their sexual orientation if I'm not realistic about accomplishing something.

Capitalism works better from every perspective when the economic decision makers are forced to share power with those who will be affected by those decisions.

What would be the nicest thing I could say about Newt Gingrich? He may be one of the great supporters of the humanities, because you have people who don't want to study the social sciences, because it's not profitable, and now Newt, as the highest-paid historian in American history, may be an encouragement to people to study history.

It is, of course, further indication that a fundamentalist right has really taken over much of the Republican Party, People might cite George Bush as proof that you can be totally impervious to the effects of Harvard and Yale education.

I am not a great theologian. I know there is a theological concept called invincible ignorance in which a strong enough faith binds you to any facts to the contrary.

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.

I hope we will not so characterize religious people as being so narrow and so biased towards people not of their own religion that they cannot even work with them in this common cause to which you say they are committed.

While I was pleasantly surprised by the relatively high number of jobs created in April, the fact is that job creation during this recovery period has significantly lagged both historical experience in recovery, and the projections of the Bush Administration.

But the absence of bad motives in no way alleviates the bad effects.

the fabled three horsemen of the fiscal apocalypse—fraud, waste, and abuse

Southern racists were able to protect murderers only because their legislators exploited fears of centralized power.

They can vote for every possible war that comes along and still be "pro-life," while a levy that applies only to the vast fortunes left by the richest 1 percent of Americans when a spousal exemption is claimed is the "death tax.

Ballplayers do not argue with the umpire so that he'll change the decision in question. They want to be on his mind when he makes the next one.

disconnect between people's distaste for government and their attraction to its manifestations.

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.

There's only one thing you can do in bankruptcy: break your word, break your deals. It allows you to say to the small businesses, who have been catering lunches for you, 'Sorry, we're not paying you.' It allows you to go to the workers and say, 'Sorry, we're not paying you.'

Capitalism works better from every perspective when the economic decision makers are forced to share power with those who will be affected by those decisions.

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.

The regulation of medicine has been a State function.